New York: After Pakistani machination to get a UNSC censure for India due to abrogation of the Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir failed miserably with only China backing Islamabad, India on Friday made it crystal clear that in order to resume talks with Modi government, Islamabad will have to shun supporting terror and violence in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Stop terror to start talks,” Syed Akbaruddin, India’s permanent representative to United Nations, told reporters here after the end of UNSC’s historic closed-door meeting on Kashmir after more than 40 years.
“There are normal diplomatic ways of dealing with countries. But using terror to try and push your goal is not the way normal states behave,” Akbaruddin said fielding questions including from Pakistani journalists.
“Please appreciate that we are committed to Shimla Agreement and we hope Pakistan too does the same,” he said, adding, however, Pakistan’s actions do not seem to be working out with what is in that agreement.
The Indian government measures in J&K have no ‘external ramifications’, he said adding “All issues between India and Pak or any other country will have to be resolved bilaterally and peacefully.”
“The fact that terror is being infused and talks of jihad being mentioned by people we should know better who it is,” Akbaruddin said.
In his media briefing, following the conclusion of the informal meeting requested by China and Pakistan, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Akbaruddin said, “History is well known I need not go back. We are committed to that and we hope Pakistan, too, is and will try to address these issues. We can go back in history but every new agreement overtakes the past”.
“Since the changes internal to India have not made any difference to our external orientation, India remains committed to ensure that the situation there (J&K) remains calm and peaceful,” he said.
“We are committed to all the agreements that we have signed on this issue,” he said and made a veiled attack on Pakistan for trying to project an ‘alarming’ sort of a situation in the union territory.
“We know there were some who tried to project an alarming approach to the situation which is far from the ground reality,” the envoy said.
“Our particular concern is that one state is using the terminology of Jihad again and promoting violence in India including its leaders when violence is not the solution to the problem,” he said.
Akbaruddin said India’s national position was and remains that matters related to Article 370 of the Indian Constitution are “entirely an internal matter of India.”
India’s envoy at UN said, “We are sad that terrorism is being fuelled, language and incendiary talk of jihad is being mentioned by people who should know better”.
When asked about alleged human rights violations in Kashmir, he was emphatic: “if there are issues, they will be addressed by our courts. We do not need international busy bodies to try and tell us how to run our lives. We are a billion-plus people. We have a commitment to democracy unlike those who are now trying to speak to me, whose experience is extremely limited. We have vast experience, we will fulfil our goals.” (UNI)
