New Delhi– The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will hold a meeting on Wednesday on the situation in Kashmir, reports reaching here said.
The body is likely to receive a briefing by the UN Military Observer Group over the situation along the Line of Control, which has seen escalation of tensions over the last few months resulting in death of several civilians and soldiers from both sides.
This is the second time in six months that the UNSC has called a meeting on Kashmir as the erstwhile state under Indian control remains under a communication and security lockdown.
The UNSC had held a consultative meeting in August last year after the Indian government imposed a lockdown and communications blackout and repealed the special status of the state.
The meeting was held when China asked the world body to review the rising tensions between South Asia’s two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, over the dispute. The issue had remained dormant since December 1971, when the UNSC held its last meaningful meeting on the Kashmir issue.
Now China has made a fresh pitch to raise the Kashmir issue in a closed-door meeting of the UNSC in New York on Wednesday.
However PTI quoting French diplomatic sources said, France has noted the request of a UNSC member to raise the Kashmir issue once again in the powerful body and it is going to oppose it like it did on a previous occasion.
Another meeting of UN’s five permanent members was called on China’s request in December, 2019 but was postponed after France opposed the proposal. Any of the five permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — can shoot down a UNSC meeting by simply disagreeing with the proposal.
China has made a request to deliberate on the Kashmir issue under the agenda of “Any Other Business Points”, the report said.
China, which claims the Ladakh region, has opposed the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories after New Delhi last year abrogated Article 370 that gave special status to the former state.
India maintains that the change in Jammu and Kashmir is an internal matter that don’t affect external boundaries.
Last week, French president Emmanuel Macron discussed the Kashmir issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying Paris continues to track developments in Kashmir closely.
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