On the first anniversary of the Article 370 abrogation, China tried to bring up the Jammu and Kashmir issue in the United Nations, but the attempt came to naught, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T.S. Tirumurti said. He said a Security Council meeting, convened by China to discuss the matter, ended without any outcome.
"Many other members of the Security Council underlined that Jammu and Kashmir was a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan and also stressed on the importance of the Simla Agreement. The attempt of Pakistan to internationalise this issue through the United Nations has again come to naught," Tirumurti said.
"Another attempt by Pakistan fails! In today's meeting of UN Security Council (UNSC) which was closed, informal, not recorded, and without any outcome, almost all countries underlined that J&K was bilateral issue & did not deserve time and attention of Council," Tirumurti tweeted.
China, Pakistan's 'all-weather ally', called for a discussion on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the Security Council under 'Any Other Business' on Wednesday, when India marked the first anniversary of ending special status to Jammu and Kashmir and its bifurcation into two Union territories—Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. According to reports, the US took the lead, with many other council members joining in and making it clear that the Kashmir issue was not a matter for the UN body to discuss, and that it was a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.
On the Jammu and Kashmir issue, China has made it clear that it stands alongside Pakistan. On Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China's position on the Kashmir issue is "consistent and clear". "First, the Kashmir issue is a dispute left over from history between Pakistan and India, which is an objective fact established by the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements between Pakistan and India," he said. "Second, any unilateral change to the status quo in the Kashmir region is illegal and invalid. Third, the Kashmir region issue should be properly and peacefully resolved through dialogue and consultation between the parties concerned," Wang said.
India had slammed the comments, and advised Beijing not to comment on the internal affairs of other nations. External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said China has no locus standi on the matter. "We have noted the comments of the Chinese MFA spokesperson on the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The Chinese side has no locus standi whatsoever on this matter and is advised not to comment on the internal affairs of other nations," Srivastava said, replying to a question on China's comments that any unilateral change to the status quo of Jammu and Kashmir was illegal and invalid.
The country has been unsuccessfully trying to drum up international support against India for withdrawing Jammu and Kashmir's special status and bifurcating it into two Union territories. India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 was its internal matter. It also advised Pakistan to accept reality and stop all anti-India propaganda.
In January this year, China, on behalf of Pakistan, had made a similar attempt to raise the Kashmir issue under "other matters" during closed consultations in the Security Council Consultations Room. Then too, China stood alone in the Pakistani corner to get the Security Council to focus on the Kashmir issue. The January attempt had failed as other member countries felt that Kashmir was a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan.
Earlier on Wednesday, Tirumurti told PTI that contrary to what Pakistan may claim, Islamabad has not been successful in trying to put Jammu and Kashmir on the UN agenda. "Frankly, the attempt by Pakistan to try and internationalise, what is a bilateral issue, is nothing new. A lie repeated a hundred times will not become truth," he said. He said that contrary to what Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mahmood Qureshi has asserted, there has been "no formal meeting of the Security Council on the India-Pakistan issue even once for the past 55 years, let alone three times!"
