Islamabad A Baloch nationalist leader based in Switzerland has welcomed a bill moved in the US Congress seeking the right to self-determination for the Baloch people, saying he would support any foreign intervention in the restive Balochistan province of southwest Pakistan.
Brahamdagh Bugti, the chief of the Baloch Republican Party, said the US must intervene in Balochistan and stop the ethnic cleansing of Baloch people .
Addressing reporters at Quetta Press Club over phone on Wednesday, Bugti, the grandson of nationalist leader Akbar Khan Bugti who was killed in a military operation in 2006, contended the resolution moved in the US House of
Representatives by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher was "not against the sovereignty of Pakistan".
"Every country has the right to interfere or intervene (in another's affairs) if there are state-sponsored human rights violations," Bugti said.
"We know that foreign countries have their personal interest but we must think of our greater interest," he added.
The Pakistan government has reacted angrily to Rohrabacher's resolution, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani describing it as an attack on the country's
sovereignty.
The Foreign Ministry called in the acting US envoy this week to lodge a "strong protest" over the resolution, which has emerged as the latest irritant in bilateral ties.
The 30-year-old Bugti said Baloch political leaders, activists, students and even women had been detained without charge and tortured for years, and under these circumstances, any support from any foreign country would be welcomed.
"We have been accused of getting support from India but the Baloch movement does not have any foreign support. "However, we will welcome any support for independence," he said.
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