Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Pakistan rejected on Monday India’s “baseless and fallacious” contention against the recent Supreme Court verdict regarding the upcoming elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.
According to the Foreign Office, a senior Indian diplomat was summoned to convey Pakistan’s rejection of India’s reservations on the issue.
Through the démarche, “it was clearly conveyed that the Indian claim over the occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir as an ‘integral part’ of India had no legal basis whatsoever,” read the statement issued by the Foreign Office.
Pakistan maintained that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is a “disputed” territory and is recognised as such by the international community.
The dispute, which is the longest outstanding item on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council, stemmed from India’s forcible and illegal occupation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 in violation of international law and the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
It was made explicit that no subsequent “illegal and unilateral Indian actions could or have altered the status of Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory”.
The Foreign Office underscored that the only resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute was the faithful implementation of the relevant UNSC Resolutions that recognise the inalienable right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination through the democratic method of free and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices.
