India counters Pak’s bid to raise Kashmir at UN, pins hope on Imran

TIL Desk/World/UN/ While countering Pakistan’s latest attempt to raise the Kashmir issue at the Security Council, India has said that it hopes the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan would work constructively to build the region and free it from the scourge of terrorism.

“Pacific settlement (of disputes) requires pacific intent in thinking and pacific content in action,” India’s Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin said Wednesday at the Council suggesting a new approach for the new government.

“Regurgitating failed approach which has long been rejected is neither reflective of pacific intent nor a display of pacific content,” he emphasised after Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi suggested the Council should resuscitate initiatives on Kashmir from 70 years ago.

“We hope that the new government of Pakistan will, rather than indulge in polemics, work constructively to build a safe, secure and developed South Asian region free of terror and violence,” Akbaruddin said. The session on mediation and settlement of disputes was presided over by Tariq Mahmood Ahmad, the British Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the UN.

Lodhi referred to decades-old failed Council efforts and invoked the 1948 Council resolution setting up the UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) for investigating and mediating the Kashmir dispute.