LAHORE: To the utter dismay of Kashmiris as well as the Pakistan government, the United Nations in a dramatic way removed the Kashmir dispute from its list of “unresolved” issues which is tantamount to negation of the indigenous freedom movement of the Kashmiris.
According to a private news channel, the omission of Jammu and Kashmir from the list of disputes under the observation of the UN Security Council was noticed by Pakistan whose envoy has lodged a protest on the move. “Jammu and Kashmir dispute was not mentioned in the context of unresolved long-running situations,” said Amjad Hussain B Sial, Pakistan’s acting envoy to UN.
“We understand this was an inadvertent omission, as Jammu and Kashmir is one of the oldest disputes on agenda of the Security Council,” he added. Sial was speaking at the UN General Assembly session, which was discussing the functioning and reform of the Security Council.
It was organised by the UK that holds the presidency of the Security Council this month.
Meanwhile, Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Attique Ahmed Khan has urged upon the UN secretary general to restore the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir in the agenda of the Security Council as it was an unsolved issue since 1947-48.
“In the presence of several valid resolutions of UN Security Council on this dispute prescribing international plebiscite as its final solution, off-loading its mention from the agenda of the Security Council militates against the logic and mandate of the UN itself”, he said in a statement here on Monday morning.
The AJK prime minister also sent an urgent memo to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reminding him that on September 25, 2008 Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his UN General Assembly address had declared that India wanted resolution of all outstanding issues including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan through talks. “When factually Kashmir is an international dispute, how can it be off-marked from UN agenda. It needs to be restored.
On ground too it is a dispute. Over 500,000 Kashmiris have laid down their lives and more than 1.5 million rendered homeless since 1947-48 because of the dispute of Kashmir,” he said.
He also reminded the world body that the Security Council had acknowledged through its Kashmir resolutions that unsolved Kashmir is a dispute that threatened international security and peace.
“Unless the dispute is solved that threat identified by the Security Council of the UNO remains alive. Kashmir dispute of today is ringed by three nuclear powers.
That increases the sensitivity of the dispute,” he said. He said the international community must take notice of the newest sensitivity of this unsolved dispute.
