Focusing international community's attention on human rights violations and suppression of the people in Indian Occupied Kashmir, Pakistan on Monday called for a negotiated settlement of the decades-old dispute.
"A peaceful resolution of this dispute is imperative for durable peace, stability and progress in South Asia," Amjad Hussain Sial, the Pakistani acting permanent representative to the UN, told the General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural questions. "We must seize the opportunity for a negotiated settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue with the full involvement of the Kashmiri people in accordance with their aspirations," he said in a debate on the 'Right of Peoples to Self-determination'.
Having gained independence through the exercise of the right to self-determination, Ambassador Sial said Pakistan had extended political, moral and diplomatic support to the exercise of that right by all other peoples who were entitled to that right. The free exercise of that right, however, had been denied in some parts of the world, such as Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine, he pointed out.
On 27 October, the Pakistan representative added, the population in Indian-occupied Kashmir had been widely agitated by the anniversary of their predicament. Six decades had elapsed since the Kashmiri people were promised the exercise of the right to self-determination by the Security Council resolutions, which pronounced that the status of Jammu and Kashmir would be decided through a democratic plebiscite.
However, Sial said, the genuine aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir had been thwarted by India, and instead the unfortunate Kashmiris who had attached high hopes to the dialogue process between India and Pakistan were being subjected to wide spread human rights violations and suppression. Pakistan, he said, remained committed to the Composite dialogue process with India.
A peaceful resolution of that dispute was imperative for durable peace, stability and progress in South Asia. In the course of his speech on the subject, Indian delegate A K Hariprasad, an MP said the right to self-determination could not be used for subversive political agendas, and could not be extended to component parts of groups within independent sovereign States.
He regretted Pakistan's reference to Jammu and Kashmir, claiming that the two regions were an integral part of India and participated regularly in India's elections. Pakistan should focus, instead, on taking action against terrorists and their support base, and to create conditions for a meaningful dialogue, he said. The Indian delegate urged Pakistan not to sow detraction for the support of Palestinian people by bringing up such matters, saying Kashmir and Palestine were separate issues.
Exercising his right of reply, Pakistan's delegate Suljuk Mustansar Tarar, rejected that the Indian claim that Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India, when the Himalayan state was internationally recognised as disputed territory. The Security Council's demand for a plebiscite under United Nations auspices was yet to be implemented, he said.
As for the supposed exercise of the people's right to self-determination through elections, it was known that elections in that territory had been rejected by the Security Council and by the people of Kashmir and the Kashmiri leadership. Tarar regretted that the Indian delegate had tried to link the dispute to terrorism. Pakistan's role as a frontline State fighting terrorism was acknowledged by the international community and it was resolved to continue that fight, he said. However, the Pakistani delegate said that the people's legitimate struggle for the right to self-determination could not be equated with terrorism.
Pakistan, he said, had agreed to address the question of Jammu and Kashmir bilaterally and had advanced several ideas to that end, but there was no positive response. Also, the Pakistan government reserved the right to refer to that issue at the United Nations, as and when necessary.
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