Pakistan urges United Nation to appoint special envoy on Kashmir
NEW YORK : Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi raised the issue of Kashmir with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres Thursday and handed him a dossier documenting human rights violations in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Abbasi urged the UN Secretary General to appoint a special envoy on Kashmir. He said it was necessary since India had closed all the doors on any dialogue.
Mr. Abbasi said India was trying to “divert the world’s attention from its brutalities,” by ceasefire violations on the LoC. “The Kashmir dispute should be resolved justly, peacefully and expeditiously. As India is unwilling to resume the peace process with Pakistan, we call on the Security Council to fulfill its obligation to secure the implementation of its own resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
“India refuses to implement the unanimous resolutions of the UN Security Council, which mandate a UN supervised plebiscite to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to freely decide their destiny. …Instead, India has deployed nearly 700,000 troops in occupied Kashmir to suppress the legitimate struggle of the Kashmiris to exercise their right to self-determination,” he said, calling it the “most intense foreign military occupation in recent history.”
Mr. Abbasi told the UN General Assembly that any military action by India that violated the Line of Control would invite a matching retaliation by Pakistan. “…if India does venture across the LoC, or acts upon its doctrine of “limited” war against Pakistan, it will evoke a strong and matching response,” Pakistan had “faced unremitting hostility” from India, he said.
Minister Abbasi also briefed the UN Secretary General about ceasefire violations by Indian security forces along the Line of Control and said there had been around 600 violations this year alone. He pointed that only on Thursday four people have been martyred by Indian firing. Abbasi and the UN Secretary General also discussed the situation in Afghanistan and agreed on the need for a negotiated settlement to bring lasting peace in Afghanistan.
Mr. Abbasi said Pakistan’s counter-terrorism credentials cannot be questioned. “After 9/11, it was Pakistani efforts that enabled the decimation of the Al-Qaeda. Pakistan’s military campaigns have succeeded in clearing our tribal areas of almost all militant groups. We took the war to the terrorists.
We have paid a heavy price. Over 27,000 Pakistanis including 6,500 military and law enforcement personnel have been martyred by terrorists. 50,000 Pakistani nationals have been injured, including 15,000 army personnel, many of whom have lost their limbs,” he said. (With Agency Inputs).
India reacted strongly to the remarks in a speech by Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi at the United Nations, saying it (Pakistan) has turned out to be “terroristan.”Exercising the right to reply at the end of the day as per UN procedures, Eenam Gambhir, First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India, contested Pakistan’s allegations against India and its claim that it was a victim of terror. “In its short history, Pakistan has become a geography synonymous with terror. The quest for a land of pure has actually produced ‘the land of pure terror.’
Pakistan is now ‘Terroristan’, with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism,” she said. A representative of Pakistan responded to India’s reply, naming National Security Adviser Ajit Doval for allegedly pursuing a strategy of aggression against Pakistan.
“it is in fact a territory whose contribution to the globalisation of terror is unparalleled. Pakistan can only be counseled to abandon a destructive world view that has caused grief to the entire world. If it could be persuaded to demonstrate any commitment to civilization, order, and to peace, it may still find some acceptance in the comity of nations,” she said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also met Prime Minister of Nepal Sher Bahadur Deuba on the sidelines of the 72nd UN General Assembly Session in New York on Thursday.
The prime minister referred to the cordial and friendly relations that have existed between the two countries over the time. Abbasi reiterated the invitation to the Prime Minister of Nepal to visit Pakistan, at his convenience. P M Deuba also extended an invitation to Prime Minister Abbasi to visit Nepal at his convenience.
