POK a part of India, every party committed to ensuring its return: Jaishankar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday asserted that Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is a part of India and said that every Indian political party was committed to ensuring that POK returns to India.

During an interaction with students of Gargi College, New Delhi, Jaishankar said, “All I can say about POK is that there a Parliament resolution…every political party of this country is committed to ensuring that POK, which is a part of India, returns to India. That is our national commitment.”

Citing the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, Jaishankar said that people earlier assumed that Article 370 could not be changed as the politics of the day had driven it deeply into the public consciousness.

“People just assume (Article) 370 cannot be changed and this is something we have to accept because the politics of the day have driven it very deeply into public consciousness. Now we see, once we change it then the entire ground situation changes,” Jaishankar said.

He also asserted that the scrapping of Article 370 in August 2019 paved the way for people to think about the issue of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as well.

“Because we have finally taken the right decision of Article 370, the POK issue has come to the front of people’s thinking. The first pre-requisite for something happening is that it should be in your thoughts,” Jaishankar said.

Earlier on May 5, Jaishankar said that POK is part of India and that people were “made to forget” about it. Responding to a question on India’s plans for POK during an event in Cuttack in Odisha, he said, “POK has never been out of this country. It is part of this country. There is a resolution of the Indian Parliament that POK is very much a part of India.”

He said that India didn’t tell Pakistan to vacate the region during the “early years of independence”, due to which the “sorry state of affairs” continued.

“When you have someone who is not a responsible custodian of the house, bahar se koi chori kar leta hai (someone steals from outside),” S Jaishankar said.

The External Affairs Minister said that the people were “made to forget about the issue of POK” and it had been brought into the consciousness of the people again.