Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday said the international community must play its role in resolving the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan, ANI reported.

“It is incumbent upon the international community to play its role in the resolution of the regional conflicts, particularly the Kashmir dispute in conformity with the UN [United Nations] resolutions on the subject with a view to ensuring durable peace in the region,” Abbasi said, while addressing Pakistan on the occasion of the country’s 70th Independence Day.

He called for positive and constructive relations with all the countries of the world, especially with its neighbours, on the basis of “sovereign equality”. “The people of South Asia have suffered enormously in the last 50 years due to the festering conflicts,” he said. “Until and unless those conflicts are resolved amicably, the people of the region cannot achieve prosperity and progress.”

He said the recent transition of power in Pakistan showed that the democratic process was back on track.

Change in leadership

On August 1, the Pakistan National Assembly had elected Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)’s Abbasi Prime Minister. He had won the election with 221 votes.

On July 28, Nawaz Sharif was forced to quit after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding office for life over a corruption scandal stemming from the Panama Papers leak in 2016. The documents had revealed that his family owned several illegally acquired offshore properties and businesses. The judges had said that Sharif had cheated the Parliament and the courts, and was not fit to hold the position.

On July 29, Sharif announced that Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Abbasi will be his party’s candidate for the post of interim prime minister.