Islamabad: The Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies (CASS), Islamabad, organised a webinar titled “The Kashmir Dispute in the Aftermath of the 2025 Conflict” on February 4, 2026.

The webinar examined the impact of the May 2025 hostilities on the Kashmiri population in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), assessed how India’s policies have shaped the lived realities of Kashmiris, and explored diplomatic, legal, and political options available to Pakistan for strengthening international engagement on the Kashmir dispute in the post-conflict environment.

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As an independent think tank, CASS continues to engage with national and international academia and practitioners working on national security in its broader strategic and humanitarian context.

The session was moderated by Air Marshal Zahid Mehmood (Retd.), Senior Director at CASS. He emphasised that the Kashmir dispute is not merely territorial, but a political and humanitarian issue rooted in the unfinished agenda of the subcontinent’s partition and the unfulfilled right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people, as recognised by the United Nations.

In her keynote address, Dr Asma Shakir Khawaja, Executive Director of the Centre for International Strategic Studies AJK, explained that Kashmir holds central importance for India due to ideological motivations, strategic considerations related to China, control over water resources, and the imposition of a majoritarian narrative over the only Muslim-majority region under Indian control.

From Pakistan’s perspective, she said, the dispute is grounded in the principles of the Radcliffe Award, shared ethnic and religious ties, strategic imperatives, and the primacy of human rights and human dignity. Critiquing the Modi government’s Kashmir policy, she noted a declining appetite for peace, an increasingly aggressive security posture, and prestige-driven narratives portraying India as a “vishwaguru.” She added that efforts to normalise the situation through tourism and sporting events have failed to conceal coercive ground realities.

Looking ahead, Dr Khawaja called for moving beyond symbolic or cosmetic measures to address the core issue of self-determination, humanising the Kashmir conflict, challenging ideological extremism, and linking Kashmir with contemporary global issues to enhance sustained international engagement.

In his concluding remarks, Air Marshal Javaid Ahmed (Retd.), President of CASS, thanked the keynote speaker for her insightful contribution and reaffirmed Pakistan’s principled stance in supporting a just, durable, and peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people and relevant UN resolutions.