SRINAGAR: The United Nations Security Council has not been discussing the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, Russia’s envoy to the UN and Council president for October said on Monday.
“I don’t want to go there, don’t want to go there. No, no please, I don’t want to go there,” Russia’s Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said as he quickly interrupted a question on India and Pakistan tensions during a press briefing in UN yesterday.
Churkin was addressing the media as Russia assumed the Presidency of the 15-nation Council for the month of October.
When asked why he would not comment on the issue, Churkin said, “because I am President of the Security Council. The Security Council has not been discussing it (the India Pakistan situation).”
“Sorry sir, I don’t want to go there. No comment, no comment, sorry please,” Churkin said.
When asked again why he and Russia were “so reluctant” to discuss the India-Pakistan situation, Churkin said, “I’m sure you know. There are so many other things.”
Pakistan had approached the Security Council last week after India claimed it “carried out surgical strikes along the Line of Control in PaK”.
Earlier in the day, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq was asked what the UN position is on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj s remarks in her address to the UN General Assembly that Pakistan should “abandon its Kashmir dream since Kashmir is and will remain an integral part of India”.
“We have issued a statement on the situation between India and Pakistan. I would refer you back to that,” Haq said.
When asked again why the UN did not “say anything” to Swaraj’s remarks that Pakistan should stop dreaming about Kashmir, Haq said, “We don’t comment on every speech made in the General Assembly, but we have been commenting on the situation on Kashmir, and like I said, we issued a statement on that just last Friday.”
Calling for restrain on LoC, United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, had “offered his good offices” to mediate between India and Pakistan to resolve Kashmir in his latest statement on Kashmir.
Pakistan’s envoy to the UN Maleeha Lodhi had met New Zealand’s UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, president of the Council for the month of September, and had raised the issue of the surgical strikes in “informal consultations” of the Council.
She had also met UN Secretary General Ban on the issue but the UN Chief had called on the governments of India and Pakistan to address their outstanding issues, including Kashmir, peacefully through “diplomacy and dialogue”.
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