OBSERVER REPORT
NEW YORK
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative
to the United
Nations Maleeha Lodhi on
Friday said that Indian occupied
Kashmir had become
an armed cage, urging
the international community
to intervene in the
area before it was too late.
Lodhi made the comments
during an interview
with the Saudi-based Al-
Arabiya television channel
as the military lockdown of
the occupied valley entered
its 27th day.
The ambassador
stressed that the people of
the valley should be given
the right to decide their
own destiny and warned of
a bigger humanitarian crisis
in the curfew-bound
disputed territory.
“The United Nations
Security Council has an obligation
to resolve the decades-
old Kashmir problem
by implementing its own
resolutions that pledged the
right of self-determination to
the Kashmiri people,” Ambassador
Lodhi told the
Saudi channel.
Maleeha urges world
community to act before
it’s too late in Kashmir
The Pakistani envoy
also questioned the silence
of the international community
on the issue. “The
whole world subscribes to
the principle of self-determination.
Why should it be
denied to the people of
Jammu and Kashmir?” she
asked.
Lodhi said it was time
for the international community
to act before it was
too late, pointing out, that
like the issue of Palestine,
the issue of occupied
Kashmir has also been on
the Security Council’s
agenda.
“The international community
should respond to
the fast deteriorating situation
in occupied Kashmir
because it poses a danger
to peace and security of
South Asian region,” noted
Ambassador Lodhi.
She also added that Pakistan
believed that the IoK
situation also endangered
international peace and that
the 15-member UN Security
Council should live up to its
responsibility.
Calling India’s decision
to revoke Kashmir’s special
status as “illegal and
illegitimate”, Lodhi said the
Security Council acknowledged
the fact that it was
an international dispute
when the 15-member body
met recently.
“There is a communication
blackout, people cannot
communicate with anybody,
telephone lines are
not working, the Internet
has been suspended,
people are not allowed to
go out and pray,” she said.
“The anger and rage are
there, it has been bottled
up because as I said people
have been imprisoned,”
she added. “Once the curfew
is lifted, this anger and
rage will find expression,”
she warned.
