By Ahmad Adil
NEW DELHI (AA) – India on Friday expressed "strong opposition" to the "unwarranted references" made by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) head with regard to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
UNGA President Volkan Bozkir had addressed a news conference along with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad on Thursday and stated he encouraged Pakistan and India to resolve the issue through peaceful means.
The ministry said that the UNGA president's remarks that Pakistan is "duty bound" to raise this issue in the UN more strongly "are unacceptable".
"We express our strong opposition to the unwarranted references made with respect to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir by the President of the United Nations General Assembly (PGA) Volkan Bozkir during his recent visit to Pakistan," India's Ministry of External Affairs spokesman said.
Bozkir on Thursday called on the parties involved in the Kashmir dispute to refrain from changing the status of the disputed territory.
"As the minister [Pakistan Foreign Minister] mentioned, and also compared to two important things, I think the two problems are of the same age, Palestine and Jammu and Kashmir, and I fully agree that this is the case," he said.
"Nor indeed is there any basis for comparison to other global situations," the Indian spokesman said.
According to India's Ministry of External Affairs, "when an incumbent president of the UN General Assembly makes misleading and prejudiced remarks, he does great disservice to the office he occupies."
"The PGA's behavior is truly regrettable and surely diminishes his standing on the global platform," the spokesman noted in the statement.
– Disputed region
Kashmir is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.
Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars — in 1948, 1965 and 1971 — two of them over Kashmir.
Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan.
According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.
On Aug. 5, 2019 the Indian government revoked Article 370 and other related provisions from its Constitution, scrapping the country’s only Muslim-majority state with its autonomy. It was also split into two federally administered territories
