This growing tendency to treat every internal conflict in South Asia as if it were interchangeable with Kashmir (the “Sunni Valley“). This is a mistake, and in the case of Balochistan, a very serious one.
The distinction was once put very clearly to me by Benazir Bhutto herself. In the 1990s, while seeking international advocacy on Kashmir, she was asked by Saddam Hussein a blunt question: If we support Kashmir, why should the world not support Kurdistan? Her reply was immediate and precise. Kashmir, she said, is an international dispute. Kurdistan is not.
That distinction matters, and it still holds.
Kashmir is internationalized by design. It is anchored in UN resolutions, formal bilateral agreements, wars between recognized states, and sustained global diplomatic engagement. It belongs to the same narrow category as Palestine or Cyprus; flashpoints where sovereignty itself is contested between states and therefore cannot be reduced to a domestic matter. Continue reading Why Balochistan Is Not Kashmir