UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has voiced its strong objection to India’s decision to hold Group of 20 meetings in the UN-recognised disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir later this month.
Ambassador Munir Akram spoke at an ambassadorial-level meeting of the Group of 77, urging India not to misuse its position as chair of the world’s largest economies. He said the meetings were “stage-managed events” designed to project a false sense of normalcy in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
India, as the current holder of the rotating presidency of the G20, is scheduled to host a leaders’ summit in New Delhi in early September.
The G20 meetings leading up to the summit, including the Youth 20 meetings, are set to take place in Srinagar and Leh in the neighbouring region of Ladakh.
Ambassador Akram reminded delegates that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and over a dozen Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council had requested access to the Indian-occupied region to investigate reports of gross violations of human rights.
He claimed that India should instead allow these officials to observe and report on the “massive oppression” in the region, where the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people and other fundamental rights were being suppressed by an occupation force of 900,000 Indian troops.
In response to the Pakistani envoy’s statement, India’s Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj reiterated her country’s position on Kashmir. The disputed territory has long been a source of tension between the two nations, with both India and Pakistan claiming it in its entirety.
