Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Amjad Hussain Azar has said the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is demanding provincial status for Gilgit-Baltistan without compromising the Kashmir issue. The Gilgit-Baltistan provincial status demand came as Azar addressed party workers in Karachi on Sunday, vowing to make the region a model for Pakistan.
Azar said the population of Gilgit-Baltistan residents living in Sindh, particularly Karachi, had grown considerably. He said the PPP would address the problems of those residents and invited people interested in seeing good governance to visit the region.
“We will make Gilgit-Baltistan a model for Pakistan,” he said.
What the chief minister said in Karachi
Azar pledged to resolve the issues faced by Gilgit-Baltistan residents living in Sindh. His speech tied the status demand to everyday governance: services, jobs, and the treatment of a community that now lives far beyond the region’s mountains.
The Karachi setting matters. A large Gilgit-Baltistan community lives in the city, and party workers there form one of the PPP’s audiences outside the region itself. By speaking in Karachi, Azar addressed both the region and its diaspora in one speech.
Why the Kashmir point matters
Azar framed the demand carefully. Provincial status, he said, would come without compromising the Kashmir issue.
That qualification sits at the heart of the status debate. Gilgit-Baltistan is administered separately from the four provinces, and any change to its status raises questions about the wider Kashmir dispute. By stating the condition plainly, Azar sought to close off the objection before it was raised.
The speech did not set out a timetable, a draft, or a parliamentary route for the demand. It stated the party’s position and left the mechanics for later.
Gilgit-Baltistan provincial status and governance
The status demand does not stand alone. It follows a run of governance claims by the region’s leadership that our own coverage has tracked.
Our report on the chief minister’s stand on mines and minerals recorded his position that those resources are a provincial subject, a claim about who controls the region’s wealth. Our report on the GB cabinet’s Skardu decisions covered funding for a cadet college and local government polls, while our report on 55,000 out of school children in Diamer showed the scale of the education gap the government faces. Our report on tighter security for foreign workers in the region sets out the security pressures that also shape its politics.
Read together, those stories show a leadership arguing two things at once: that the region should run more of its own affairs, and that it needs more support to do so. The provincial status demand is the sharpest form of the first argument.
What happens next
The next step is political rather than administrative. A demand made at a party gathering in Karachi needs backing in parliament and agreement across parties before it can move from slogan to statute.
For now, Azar has put the PPP’s position on the record in clear terms: provincial status for Gilgit-Baltistan, the Kashmir issue untouched, and the region held up as a model for the rest of Pakistan. Whether other parties accept that framing will decide whether the demand advances or stalls.
Source reporting: The Express Tribune.
Who is demanding provincial status for Gilgit-Baltistan?
Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Amjad Hussain Azar says the PPP is demanding provincial status for the region.
Does the demand affect the Kashmir issue?
Azar says no. He stated that the PPP wants provincial status without compromising the Kashmir issue.
Where did Azar make the demand?
He addressed party workers in Karachi on Sunday, noting that the population of Gilgit-Baltistan residents living in Sindh, particularly Karachi, has grown considerably.
What else did Azar promise?
He pledged to resolve the issues faced by Gilgit-Baltistan residents living in Sindh and invited people interested in good governance to visit the region.
