ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday urged international support for Kashmiris who on Jan. 5 observe Right to Self-Determination Day.

Muslim-majority Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, have fought and argued over the Himalayan region ever since partition in 1947. Both claim it in full and rule in part. India controls around 45 percent of the former princely state, Pakistan around a third and China the rest, which is a largely uninhabited slice of high-altitude desert.

Kashmiris observe Right to Self-Determination Day on Jan. 5, in remembrance of the day in 1949 when the UN Commission on India and Pakistan (UNCIP) decided that the future of Kashmir should be settled through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.

“We are commemorating this day to remind the world community that it cannot abandon its moral and legal responsibilities toward the Kashmiri people,” Khan said in a statement. “The importance of the inalienable right to self-determination has been acknowledged in all important human rights covenants, decisions of the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.”

“The right to self-determination was granted to the Kashmiris by the United Nations and cannot be unilaterally denied by India.”

Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over control of the region, which is divided by the Line of Control which both agreed to in 1972, although neither recognizes it as an international boundary.

Tensions over Kashmir have heightened since Aug. 5, 2019, when New Delhi scrapped special autonomous status of the part under its administration. It also divided the state into two federally administered units — Union Territory of Ladakh and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The move was followed by a crackdown on political activity, arrests of hundreds of political leaders and a series of administrative measures allowing more outsiders to settle in Kashmir and raising concerns over attempts at engineering a demographic change in the Muslim-majority region.

“India’s illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August, 2019, and subsequent measures, particularly pertaining to domicile rules and land ownership laws, are aimed at changing the demographic structure of IIOJK (Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir) and converting the Kashmiris into a minority in their own land,” Khan said.

“Durable peace in South Asia is contingent upon peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with international legitimacy.”