UNITED NATIONS: Pakistani and Indian delegates engaged in a fresh verbal duel in the United Nations General Assembly Friday, after Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram drew world community’s attention to New Delhi’s grave human rights violations in occupied Kashmir and called for resolving the UN-recognized dispute in accordance with Security Council resolutions.
Indian delegate Madhu Sudan Ravindran reacted to Ambassador Akram’s sharp statement during a debate on the Security Council’s report to the 193-member Assembly, claiming that Jammu and Kashmir was an integral matters of India and urged Pakistan not to indulge in what he called “theatrics”.
Ravindran said that issues between India and Pakistan should be resolved bilaterally and peacefully, adding that the onus is on Islamabad to create such a conducive atmosphere.
Exercising his right of reply, Pakistan’s delegate Saad Warraich declared that Jammu and Kashmir is not a part of India, never was and never will be.
“India has no claim to Jammu & Kashmir than that of a military occupier,” said Warraich, a counselor at the Pakistan Mission to the UN.
“Like all oppressors, India continues to believe that it can subdue the legitimate Kashmiri resistance through brute force,” he said. “Like all occupiers of the past, India will fail in its strategy to subdue and suppress the Kashmiri people.”
“Kashmir will be free one day,” the Pakistan delegate said, adding, “This is not only a lesson of history; it is also an imperative of justice”
The Kashmiri struggle, he said, seeks to realize the implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council in exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination.
“No amount of empty rhetoric or dubious grandstanding by India can deprive the Kashmiris of this fundamental right or do away with the binding resolutions of the Security Council,” Warraich said.
“Perhaps the Indian representative needs reminding that these are the resolutions of the very same organ (Security Council) whose permanent membership India covets with such drooling ambition,”
“Instead of ’tilting at windmills’, India would be better served to put its own house in order and to strive for regional peace, based on equality and mutual respect, and a peaceful settlement of all disputes,” the Pakistani delegate added.
