Pakistan reiterates that Kashmir is a disputed region, rejecting India’s claim and urging the UN to uphold resolutions on its final status.
At the end of a high-level UN Security Council discussion on peacekeeping operations, Gul Qaiser Sarwani, Counselor at Pakistan’s Mission to the UN, exercised his right of reply by declaring, “Every official UN map depicts Jammu and Kashmir as disputed territory.”
Following a reiteration of New Delhi’s claim that “Kashmir has been, is, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India” by Indian Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, Sarwani responded.
In response to a speech by Syed Tariq Fatemi, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who urged the 15-member Council to adopt its own resolutions calling for a UN-supervised plebiscite to decide the destiny of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian envoy made the comment.
“Jammu and Kashmir is not and has never been a so-called ‘integral’ part of India,” Sarwani stated, adding that no amount of obfuscation can alter the legal, political, and historical facts.
In accordance with many UN Security Council resolutions, he defined the area as a “disputed territory” whose “final disposition” must be determined by its citizens in a vote.
With over 900,000 troops and paramilitary forces stationed in what he described as “the densest occupation in history,” Sarwani criticized India’s extensive military presence in the area.
Citing UN figures, he added that over 100,000 Kashmiris have been slain since 1989 and emphasized India’s flagrant human rights abuses.
“It is most ironic that India, which is committing the worst form of state terrorism in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, is portraying itself as the victim,” the Pakistani envoy said in response to Indian accusations of cross-border terrorism.
He went on to say that reasonable attempts for self-determination are frequently branded as terrorism by colonizers and invaders.
Sarwani continued by pointing out that India finances and supports anti-Pakistan organizations such as the Majeed Brigade, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), and the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and that India was planning subversion and targeted killings abroad.
Pakistan has continuously insisted that following UN resolutions and holding a plebiscite under UN supervision are the only ways to settle the Jammu and Kashmir conflict in a fair and peaceful manner.
Earlier, Masarrat Aalam Butt, the Chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), who is illegally detained, and other Hurriyat leaders and organizations congratulated the people and government of Pakistan on Pakistan Day and prayed for the country’s continued progress, stability, and prosperity.
Masarrat Aalam Butt, according to Kashmir Media Service, sent a telegram from the infamous Tihar Jail in New Delhi expressing sympathy with the people of Pakistan, calling the nation a ray of hope for the oppressed Kashmiris and the Muslim Ummah as a whole.
He emphasised that Pakistan, founded on a noble ideology, serves as a great blessing for Muslims worldwide.
