New York: Pakistan’s attempt to internationalise the Kashmir issue through the United Nations has again “come to naught”, after a UN Security Council meeting, convened by China to discuss the matter, ended without any outcome, a top Indian diplomat said on August 6.
India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador TS Tirumurti said that many other members of the Security Council underlined that Jammu and Kashmir was a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan and also stressed on the importance of the Simla Agreement.
“The attempt of Pakistan to internationalise this issue through the United Nations has again come to naught,” Tirumurti told a news agency.
“Another attempt by Pakistan fails! In today’s meeting of UN Security Council (UNSC) which was closed, informal, not recorded, and without any outcome, almost all countries underlined that J&K was bilateral issue and did not deserve time and attention of Council,” Tirumurti tweeted.
China, Pakistan’s ‘all-weather ally’, called for a discussion on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the Security Council under ‘Any Other Business’ on August 5, when India marked the first anniversary of ending special status to Jammu and Kashmir and its bifurcation into two union territories–Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
Pakistan has been unsuccessfully trying to drum up international support against India for withdrawing Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcating it into two union territories.
India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 was its internal matter. It also advised Pakistan to accept reality and stop all anti-India propaganda.
In January this year, China, on behalf of Pakistan, had made a similar attempt to raise the Kashmir issue under “other matters” during closed consultations in the Security Council Consultations Room. Then too, China stood alone in the Pakistani corner to get the Security Council to focus on the Kashmir issue.
“Frankly, the attempt by Pakistan to try and internationalise, what is a bilateral issue, is nothing new. A lie repeated a hundred times will not become truth,” Tirumurthi said.
He said that contrary to what Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mahmood Qureshi has asserted, there has been “no formal meeting of the Security Council on the India-Pakistan issue even once for the past 55 years, let alone three times!”
Tirumurti said what had come up earlier was in a closed-door completely informal meeting under what is called ‘Any Other Business’.
“This is a category where literally any item could be brought for discussion by anyone. Even China, being a permanent member, had to face discussion on Hong Kong in the Security Council under AOB earlier this May. These meetings have no records, and there is no outcome,” he said.
India had on August 5 slammed China for describing the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 as “illegal and invalid”, and advised Beijing not to comment on the internal affairs of other nations.
In a sharp reaction to China’s comments on the first anniversary of India’s decision on Jammu and Kashmir, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said China has no locus standi on the matter.
