Observer Report
United Nations
Pakistan has called on the UN Security Council to demand an end to India’s repressive military lockdown of occupied Kashmir, now in its second month, and move to implement its resolutions pledging the right of self-determination to the long-suffering Kashmiri people.
“This travesty must end,” Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said in a firm tone during a UN General Assembly debate on the annual report of the 15-member Council on Thursday.
Recalling that the Security Council had adopted at least 11 resolutions on the Kashmir dispute, the Pakistani envoy told the 193-member Assembly that, when it fails to ensure implementation, the consequences are paid in blood over generations.
“In the case of Kashmir,” she said, “this bloodletting has lasted over seventy years, and has accounted for the lives of over 95,000 Kashmiris, including countless women and children.”
Ambassador Lodhi also pointed out that while the Security Council actively pursues the implementation of some resolutions, it ignores others, thus reflecting double standards in its work.
“In our region,” she said, “the festering Jammu and Kashmir dispute, serves, not only as a reprehensible face to a brutal and suppressive occupation, but also a constant reminder to the solemn commitment that the Security Council, through its several resolutions – at least eleven – made to the Kashmiri people, promising them their right to self-determination.
“Faced with the illegal Indian annexation of occupied Jammu and Kashmir, on 5 August 2019, the grim reality of occupation has become ever starker for the Kashmiri people. The darkness that has been imposed on the occupied territory shows no sign of being lifted.”
In this regard, the Pakistani envoy warned that unilateral action and gross violations of Security Council resolutions threaten the rules-based international order, as well as the Council’s legitimacy and credibility.
