ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Saturday welcomed the United Nationssecretary general Antonio Guterres’ support to the OHCHR’s (Office of HighCommissioner for Human Rights) report on aggravating human rights situationin India-held Kashmir.
“Indian allegations about the OHCHR report on Kashmir have been effectivelyresponded to by the UNSG support to the OHCHR,” Foreign Office spokesman DrMuhammad Faisal tweeted.
It should be recalled that the secretary general had on Thursday voiced hissupport to the Kashmir report. “As you can imagine, all action of the HumanRights High Commissioner is an action that represents the voice of the UNin relation to that issue,” Mr Guterres said while responding to ajournalist about his position on the report that has been discredited byIndia.
The first-ever United Nations report on the human rights situation inKashmir was launched last month. It had pointed to impunity for rightsabuses and lack of access to justice in India-held Kashmir. HighCommissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein had, after launchingthe report, asked the Human Rights Council to consider establishing acommission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive independent internationalinvestigation into human rights violations in held-Kashmir.ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD
Pakistan had welcomed the report and the recommendation for theestablishment of the ‘Commission of Inquiry’ — the highest level probeunder the UN system. India had, however, rejected it and said that the highcommissioner lacked the mandate to commission such a report.
India, meanwhile, contends that the high commissioner’s call for aninternational probe is no more valid because it failed to get support inthe Human Rights Council. They have also objected to Mr Guterres’ remarksand reiterated their rejection of the report.
India’s ministry of external affairs had again said that the UN’s Kashmirreport was ‘baseless’ and ‘fallacious’. It added that the OHCHRrecommendation for an independent probe in Kashmir found no support inHuman Rights Council except for Pakistan.
The UN secretary general, besides supporting the report, re-emphasised thatthere could only be a political solution to the Kashmir problem.