UNITED NATIONS: A top Pakistani diplomat Tuesday sternly warned India against its repeated threats to carry out “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed Kashmir region, saying Pakistan would effectively respond to any Indian aggression.
“All I can say to them is: do not underestimate Pakistan’s resolve and capacity to defend itself,” Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the UN General Assembly.
“Any aggression or intervention will meet a matching and effective response from our armed forces and the people of Pakistan,” she said, while participating in a debate on the annual report of UN Secretary-General on the work of the organisation.
The Pakistani envoy went on to urge the United Nations and the international community to take “urgent” action to prevail on India to stop its open threats to use force amid the prevailing tensions between the two countries.
India, she said, resorts to daily violations of the ceasefire along the LoC to cover up its crimes against the Kashmiri people and to divert world attention from its occupation. “It claims, falsely, to have conducted a so-called ‘surgical strike’ across the LoC. This claim—and India’s repeated threats to conduct such ‘strikes’ across the LOC—constitute flagrant violations of the UN Charter’s injunction against the use or threat of use of force,” she pointed out.
“This provides Pakistan sufficient reason to respond in an exercise of its right to self-defence. By making such false claims and blatant threats, are India’s leaders attempting to provoke a conflict with Pakistan,” she asked.
Describing the continuing Indian occupation of Jammu and Kashmir a travesty of justice, law and morality, the Pakistani envoy said the people of India-occupied Kashmir still await the implementation of numerous Security Council resolutions, adopted some 70 years ago, that promised them their inalienable right to self-determination.
India has used brutal and indiscriminate force to suppress the heroic indigenous freedom movement against the occupation, she said, noting that hundreds of innocent, unarmed Kashmiris have been martyred in the recent wave of protests; countless others have been blinded and maimed by pellet guns, in what has widely been described as the first ‘mass blinding’ in human history.
Indian atrocities in Jammu and Kashmir were well-documented by international human rights organisations, but India defends them. “It does not express remorse on the acts of the perpetrators of these war crimes; it rewards them with national honours.”
Ambassador Lodhi said the edifice of peace could only be built on the foundation of justice. “Yet, these universal ideals are being violated, in plain sight of the international community, in Palestine, in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and elsewhere.”
The Pakistani envoy called on the international community not to allow impunity to conduct its crimes against humanity in Kashmir under the “flimsy” cover of combating terrorism. “The only terrorism in Kashmir is India’s state terrorism,” she said.
On its part, Pakistan has been on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism, with its military campaign, involving over 200,000 troops, having crushed and eliminated terrorist groups in the country’s frontier regions and its towns and cities, she said. Despite paying a heavy price—27,000 civilians and soldiers martyred, and many more injured—Pakistan will continue this fight until its objectives were achieved, she added.
“Extremist ideologies must also be challenged and countered,” she said.
Backing Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ emphasis on ‘prevention’, ambassador Lodhi said a surge in diplomacy was the best response to any threat to peace. Over the years, she noted, peacekeeping had remained the UN’s flagship enterprise for conflict prevention, mediation and sustaining peace.
“Pakistan, as the world’s top troop-contributing countries, was proud to have played its part in bringing hope to the lives of millions of people, caught up in conflict across the world,” she said. This year alone, five Pakistani peacekeepers have paid the ultimate sacrifice to uphold international peace and security, she informed.
Pakistani peacekeepers, she said, had always displayed the highest standards of professionalism and conduct. Pakistan was also among the first batch of countries to sign the UN’s voluntary compact on preventing and addressing sexual exploitation and abuse, she added.
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