United Nations: India at the UN has called for permanently removing the issue of Jammu and Kashmir under the “outdated agenda item” of the ‘India-Pakistan question’ from the Security Council’s agenda, saying such “irrational exuberance” has no takers in a dignified world.
During a virtual informal meeting of the plenary on the annual report of the Security Council, Pakistan’s UN envoy Munir Akram had raked up the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and said that the Security Council has also been found lacking in implementing its own resolutions and decisions on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
He added that the Council has met thrice during the last one year to consider the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
India, without naming Pakistan, said in a statement on Monday that “there is a delegation that repeatedly attempts to rebrand itself as contributing to international peace, but unfortunately fails to recognise that it is globally known for being the fountainhead of international terror and the hub for terror syndicates.
“This delegation keeps pushing for discussions on an outdated agenda item in the Council, which for all matter needs to be removed from the Council’s agenda permanently. Such irrational exuberance has no takers in a dignified world,” India said on the ‘Report of the Security Council for 2019′.
An August 3, 2020 summary statement by the Secretary-General of “matters of which the Security Council is seized” listed ‘The India-Pakistan question’ among those items that have not been considered by the Council at a “formal meeting” during the period from January 1, 2017 to August 1, 2020.
The agenda item ‘India-Pakistan question’ was first taken up by the Council at a formal meeting on January 6, 1948 and was last considered on November 5, 1965.
Pakistan, backed by its ‘all-weather ally’ China, has been repeatedly seeking to have a discussion on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the Security Council.
The Council had held closed consultations on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir on August 16 last year after China asked for the “closed consultations” to discuss the matter. That meeting had ended without any outcome.
In January this year, China, on behalf of Pakistan, had again made an attempt to raise the Kashmir issue under “other matters” during closed consultations in the Security Council Consultations Room. Then too, China stood alone in the Pakistani corner to get the Security Council to focus on the Kashmir issue.
Last month, as India marked the first anniversary of ending the special status to Jammu and Kashmir and its bifurcation into two union territories — Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Beijing again called for a discussion on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the Security Council under ‘Any Other Business’.
All these meetings ended without any outcome, as many other members of the Security Council have underlined that Jammu and Kashmir is a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan.
India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador T S Tirumurti, had told PTI that contrary to what Pakistan may claim, Islamabad has not been successful in trying to put Jammu and Kashmir on the UN agenda.
“Frankly, the attempt by Pakistan to try and internationalise, what is a bilateral issue, is nothing new,” he had said.
Tirumurti had pointed out that contrary to what the Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mehmood Qureshi asserted, “there has been no formal meeting of the Security Council on the India-Pakistan issue even once for the past 55 years, let alone three times!”
Pakistan, backed by China, has only been able to bring up the issue of Jammu and Kashmir informally and in closed door meetings under what is called ‘Any Other Business’, a category where literally any item can be brought for discussion by anyone. These meetings have no records and there is no outcome.
Tirumurti had pointed out that even UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in his statement last August, clearly referred to the 1972 bilateral Simla Agreement.
“Consequently, Pakistan has been singularly unsuccessful in making any inroads into the UN on Jammu and Kashmir. That is the reality,” Tirumurti had said.(PTI)
