TIL Desk/World/United Nations-The message that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India should be ‘loud and clear’ to Pakistan, India on Monday asserted and asked whether it can clarify how terror safe havens continue to flourish on its soil despite billions of dollars of anti-terrorism aid it gets. In its ‘Right of Reply’, India also rejected the ‘fanciful and misleading’ remarks by the Pakistani envoy to the United Nations.
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi earlier exercised the Right of Reply to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s UN General Assembly address, saying Swaraj’s remarks were a ‘litany of falsehoods’ about Pakistan and a ‘travesty of facts and history’. Lodhi said Jammu and Kashmir can never be an integral part of India and is a ‘disputed territory’, the final status of which has yet to be determined in accordance with several resolutions of the UN Security Council.
Responding to Pakistan’s RoR, India reaffirmed that Kashmir is and always will be an integral part of India. “…It appears that the distinguished representative of Pakistan did not hear clearly what our Minister of External Affairs stated during her address earlier today,” First Secretary in the Indian Mission to the UN Eenam Gambhir said, exercising India’s Right of Reply to Lodhi’s remarks. Quoting from Swaraj’s address, Gambhir said Jammu and Kashmir is India’s integral part and will always remain so. “We hope that the message is loud and clear,” she said.
