United Nations,
Pakistan reminded India that Kashmir cannot be removed from the agenda of the UN Security Council (UNSC), which was committed to resolving the issue according to the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
“Indian representatives are either deluding themselves, or deluding their public, by asserting that they will remove Kashmir from the Security Council’s agenda,” said Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, while commenting on the Indian move. “It will not happen”, he said.
Ambassador Akram argued that the Security Council’s agenda was set in accordance with the established rules and procedures and could be changed only by a consensus decision of the council. “A member state cannot change the agenda unilaterally.”
India asked the UN body earlier this week to remove Kashmir from its agenda to prevent Pakistan from raising it at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, which begins in New York later this month.
In its statement on the Report of the Security Council for 2019, India complained that Pakistan “keeps pushing for discussions on an outdated agenda item in the council” which for “all matter needs to be removed from the council’s agenda permanently”.
Since Aug 5, 2019, when India illegally merged the disputed territory with it, Pakistan has raised the Kashmir issue three times inside the council with China’s support.
The Indians, however, argue that the merger — although illegal — has ended the disputed nature of occupied Kashmir and therefore it should be removed from the council’s agenda.
The UNSC does not recognise the Indian claim and not only treats Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir as an unresolved dispute but also maintains military observers on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC). Every year, the council puts occupied Kashmir on its agenda as “the India-Pakistan Question”, making it clear that it sees it as a territory disputed between the two countries.
Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York told Dawn that India has long sought to remove the “India-Pakistan Question” from the agenda of the Security Council. Despite its best efforts, India’s attempts have failed consistently.—KMS
