Key points
- Disputed status of Indian Occupied Kashmir is acknowledged by the UN: Pakistan’s delegate
- Every official UN map depicts Jammu and Kashmir as disputed territory: Pakistan
- India should consult the UN maps and UNSC resolutions on Kashmir before making baseless statements
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s delegate Gul Qaiser Sarvani brushed aside India’s claim of Jammu and Kashmir being its “integral part”, saying the disputed status of the Himalayan state is acknowledged by the United Nations and the international community.
Sarwani, who is a counselor at the Pakistan Mission to the UN, was reacting to Indian Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish’s claim.
Right of Reply (RoR) by Counsellor Gul Qaiser Sarwani
In the Security Council’s Open Debate on the UN Peace Operations
(24 March 2025)
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President,My delegation has been compelled to take the floor to respond to the statement made by the Indian delegate.
2. No amount of… pic.twitter.com/sGuWP4Y3Pa
— Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the UN (@PakistanUN_NY) March 24, 2025
Exercising his right of reply, the Pakistani delegate said, “No amount of obfuscation can change the legal, political and historical reality — Jammu and Kashmir is not, and has never been a so-called ‘integral’ part of India.”
Right to self-determination
He said every official UN map depicts Jammu and Kashmir as disputed territory. India is under a legally binding obligation under Article 25 of the UN Charter to implement the resolutions of the Security Council and enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise their right to self-determination.
Gul Qaiser Sarvani said that India holds Kashmir by brute force with over 900,000 troops and paramilitary forces in the occupied territory. India has killed over 100,000 innocent Kashmiris since 1989, he added. It has imposed the densest occupation in history, with one Indian soldier for every eight Kashmiri man, woman and child, he maintained.
India’s gross violations of human rights in occupied Kashmir have been recorded in two reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and numerous reports of the Human Rights Council’s Special Mechanisms, he added.
He said, “Indian delegate raising the bogey of terrorism to divert attention from its violations of international law in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. It is most ironic that India, which is committing the worst form of state terrorism in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, is portraying itself as the victim. It is a familiar ploy of all occupiers and colonizers to paint legitimate struggles for freedom and liberation as terrorism.”
Baseless statements
Instead of maligning others for terrorism, India should sincerely reflect on its own campaign of orchestrating targeted assassinations, subversion and terrorism in foreign countries, he added. “It is India which supports and finances terrorism against Pakistan through Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Majeed Brigade,” he said.
He has advised the Indian delegate to consult the UN maps and UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir – before making baseless statements in this esteemed body.
Sarwani, was reacting to Indian Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish’s claim that “Kashmir has been, is, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India.”
The Permanent Representative of India alleged that “Pakistan has yet again resorted to unwarranted remarks on the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.”
“We would advise Pakistan not to try to divert attention of this forum to drive their parochial and divisive agenda,” Harish said.
A UN-supervised plebiscite
Earlier, the Special Assistant to Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Syed Tariq Fatemi, made an earnest call on the 15-member Council to implement its own resolutions promising the Kashmiri people the right to self-determination through a UN-supervised plebiscite.
Fatemi reminded the Security members that the Kashmir dispute awaits a just and final settlement in accordance with the relevant resolutions that promised to the Kashmiri people the right to self-determination through a UN-supervised plebiscite.
“It is the responsibility of this Council to ensure the realization of that right for the Kashmiri people, and promote a just and lasting settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, by taking measures to implement its own resolutions,” the foreign affairs state minister said.
“As others have stated, it is important to address the root causes of the conflicts to establish durable peace.”
Meanwhile, according to Business Today, Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday alleged that India has faced the longest-standing illegal occupation of a territory since World War II.
“After World War II, the longest-standing illegal presence and occupation of a territory by another country pertains to India in Kashmir,” he alleged, while speaking at the Raisina Dialogue. “We went to the UN. What was an invasion was made into a dispute. The attacker and the victim were put on par,” the Indian external affairs minister claimed.
