ISLAMABD – India is expecting the same narrative on Jammu and Kashmir fromPakistan at the upcoming UN General Assembly session, its envoy said Friday.
On a question posed to him over Kashmir, Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin,India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said: “What you’re telling meis that it will be more of the same, much more of the same from the side ofone country. If that is so, what is our response?”
“So, let me put it this way. That it is for every country to determine itstrajectory of how it wants to approach global platforms. There may be somewho stoop low. Our response to them is we soar high. They may stoop low, wesoar high,” the envoy said, according to PTI news agency.
The prime ministers of India and Pakistan will be face to face for thefirst time at the UN gathering on Sept. 27 since New Delhi imposed anear-total lockdown on Jammu and Kashmir and scrapped special provisionsguaranteed to the region under Indian constitution on Aug. 5.
Also, the Indian government further downgraded and divided the disputedregion into two centrally controlled “union territories”.
Pakistan slammed the move asking the UN Security Council to intervene whichheld its first meeting on the Kashmir dispute in mid-August.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has vowed to raise what he termsIndia’s violation of UN resolutions on Kashmir in the upcoming session.
His Indian counterpart Narendra Modi is scheduled to speak ahead of Khan.
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“We explained to you what is our approach and what is our orientation andhow we are working very differently from our previous experiences. Butthere may be somebody who is wanting to bring an issue which they haveraised before…Your question further is that what if they becomemore-shrill, what if they raise it in a much more-sharper manner,”Akbaruddin said in a veiled reference to Pakistan.
From 1954 until Aug. 5, 2019, Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed special statuswhich allowed it to enact its own laws. The provisions also protected theregion’s citizenship law, which barred outsiders from settling in andowning land in the territory.
In order to quell popular protests, the Indian government has taken inpolitical detainees and imposed restriction on movement, a move severalrights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International havecondemned.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the scenic Himalayan regionwhich they control partly but claim in full. -Anadolu Agency
BY: Riyazul Khaliq
