Pakistan’s Foreign Office on Wednesday rejected recent remarks of India’s External Affairs Ministry on references to Jammu and Kashmir in a joint communique of Islamabad and Beijing, stressing that Delhi had “no right” to object to the statement.
On June 8, at the conclusion of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to China, the neighboring nations had issued a joint statement in which they had called on India to resolve the longstanding dispute as per relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements. In response, India External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had “rejected unwarranted references” to Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan and China.
“The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Ladakh have been, are, and will always remain integral and inalienable parts of India,” the spokesperson had asserted.
Reacting to media queries on the comment, the Foreign Office said India had no right to object to the references made to Jammu and Kashmir in the joint statement. “It is an established fact that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally-recognized disputed territory,” it said, noting the issue had been on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council for over seven decades.
“The relevant Security Council resolutions clearly stipulate that the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. In that backdrop, the Indian claims over Jammu and Kashmir are totally unfounded and misplaced,” it stressed.
The rejoinder also urged Delhi against “misleading” the global community on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), noting it was a development initiative agreed upon by two sovereign nations. “Instead of making baseless claims about CPEC, India should implement, at the earliest, the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir,” it added.