WASHINGTON: Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, a well-known Kashmiri leader, Monday reminded the top American representative at the UN of the long-running Kashmir dispute and claimed that India’s intransigence was impeding any attempts to resolve the conflict, which poses a threat to regional security and peace.
In a recent television interview about the conflict in Ukraine, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “What they (Russians) are doing undermines everything that the UN stands for,” to which Fai, the Secretary-General of the advocacy group World Kashmir Awareness Forum, responded. The United Nations Charter is undermined by it.
In response, the Kashmiri leader asked, “Doesn’t Madam Ambassador know that India equally undermines everything that the UN stands for?”
By failing to carry out its promise to the Kashmiri people to exercise their right to self-determination, India violates the U.N. Charter as well, he continued.
The Kashmiri leader raised a question in his statement on the eve of the 76th Independence Day of India, “Doesn’t the world community recognize such double standards.”
Fai wished everyone a happy occasion but argued that India lacks the moral, legal, and constitutional right to celebrate in the occupied Kashmir, a disputed UN-recognized area. He noted that because the people of Kashmir have not yet decided on the state’s future, Kashmir does not belong to any UN member state.
He claimed that the Security Council only approved UN resolutions on Kashmir after receiving the approval of both Governments, making them a legally binding international agreement to resolve the Kashmir dispute. He claimed that a special UN Commission carefully negotiated UN resolutions on Kashmir with India and Pakistan.
Fai said, “Indian Government has betrayed most of its trumpeted slogans and has over 100,000 killings in the last three decades alone, torture, rape, mutilations, arson, plunder, abductions, arbitrary detentions, and draconian punishment are all carried out by the repressive Indian troops.”
He said genuine and lasting peace can ensue only through international recognition and inclusive representations. “The risks in keeping the status quo – for Kashmir, South Asia, and the world – are too great to be overlooked.”
Dr. Fai asked the international community to take advantage of this chance to act to create the conditions essential for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, starting with demilitarizing the conflict zone, the State of Jammu & Kashmir.
APP—
