Pakistan fails to rake up Kashmir again at UNSC

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 4

India has hit back at Pakistan on the eve of the first anniversary of changes in Jammu and Kashmir’s status, the immediate context being the neighbouring nation’s failure to persuade the UNSC to come out with a resolution on Kashmir.

Pakistan had stepped up its campaign against the August 5 abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A with its Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi persuading China to hold a closed-door meeting on Kashmir at the UN Security Council (UNSC).

Qureshi later marked the consultations as a “political victory” for the Imran Khan government as this was the second time in six months that the UNSC had discussed Kashmir.

India’s permanent representative to the UN, TS Tirumurti, said Pakistan’s latest attempt had also fallen flat. “Attempts by Pakistan to try and internationalise what is a bilateral issue is nothing new. Contrary to what Qureshi has asserted, there has been no formal meeting of the UNSC on India-Pakistan issue since 1965,” he said.

“Even the UN Secretary General, in his statement last August, clearly referred to the 1972 bilateral Shimla Agreement. Consequently, Pakistan’s efforts haven’t met any traction at the UNSC. Even if Pakistan persists, there are no takers here in the UN,” said Tirumurti.

Moreover, it was a known fact that Pakistan was home to the largest number of listed terrorists, internationally designated terrorist entities and individuals, he pointed out.

India will join the UNSC for a two-year membership from January 1, 2021, for the eighth time.

Qureshi has also opposed India’s quest for permanent membership claiming that an expansion will “compound, not resolve, UNSC’s paralysis’”.