India on Thursday lashed out at China after its failed attempt to raise Kashmir at the United Nations Security Council on behalf of Pakistan, rejecting the attempted by Beijing to interfere in India’s internal affairs.
China had backed Pakistan’s request to the UNSC to discuss Kashmir on Wednesday to coincide with the first anniversary of the revocation of the special status extended to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. But four of the five permanent members — the US, UK, France and Russia — sided with India.
In a statement, the external affairs ministry underlined that this wasn’t a first for China.
“This was not the first time that China has sought to raise a subject that is solely an internal matter of India. We firmly reject China’s interference in our internal affairs and urge it to draw proper conclusions from such infructuous attempts,” the ministry statement said.
TS Tirumurti, India’s permanent representative to the UN, said “almost all countries at the UNSC underlined that J&K was a bilateral issue and did not deserve time and attention of Council”.
{{/usCountry}}TS Tirumurti, India’s permanent representative to the UN, said “almost all countries at the UNSC underlined that J&K was a bilateral issue and did not deserve time and attention of Council”.
{{/usCountry}}“Another attempt by Pakistan fails!” he tweeted after a high-profile joint effort by Pakistan and China - their third over the last one year - to discuss the Kashmir issue at UNSC was blocked.
Back home in Islamabad, Pakistan got down to celebrating its third attempt to raise Kashmir at the UNSC as a huge achievement. “This 3rd meeting in a year by the UN Security Council serves as a stark repudiation to the Indian claim that Jammu and Kashmir is an ‘internal matter’,” tweeted Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the message directed at its domestic audience.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and Qureshi’s narrative in Pakistan around its campaign on Kashmir is that Islamabad has globally suceeded in isolating New Delhi over the Kashmir issue. At a recent sitting of its parliament during the budget session, PM Khan told lawmakers that he considered Pakistan’s foreign policy its biggest achievement.
At the UNSC meeting, China and Pakistan did initially appear to have the support of Indonesia, which holds UNSC’s rotational chair for August. In the end, however, Indonesia came through for India and agreed with others that the dispute needed to resolved bilaterally between India and Pakistan, people familiar with the development said.
This was an informal consultation that was held behind closed doors and no records were kept of who said what, which would have happened in a formal and open meeting. Pakistan has sought open and formal meetings of the council to grandstand its Kashmir case, but has had to settle for these closed-door versions.