UNITED NATIONS: India has strongly dismissed Pakistan’s raising of the Jammu and Kashmir issue at multiple fora in the UN, asserting that the references are “totally out of context” and constitute a “clear interference” in its internal affairs.
India also asserted that Kashmir is, has always been and will remain an integral part of India.
In one of the Right of Replies exercised by India to respond to comments by Pakistan’s envoy to the UN, first secretary in the Indian Mission to the UN Abhishek Singh suggested that Pakistan should refrain from using the Right of Reply and instead “use the right of introspection” to think about the direction in which the country is moving.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN Maleeha Lodhi first raised the issue of Kashmir during a UN General Assembly plenary session on the Report of the Secretary General on the Work of the Organisation.
She said that consultations with Kashmiris, who are an integral part of the Kashmir dispute, are essential to evolving such a peaceful solution to the dispute.
“Calling for the termination of these consultations, as a precondition for dialogue, is unacceptable as well as counterproductive,” she said in a reference to India.
Exercising the Right of Reply, Singh asserted that Kashmir is, has always been and will remain an integral part of India.
“It is all the more ironical that these comments come from a country which is persisting with its illegal occupation of part of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir,” Singh said.
