New Delhi: Pakistan’s raking up Kashmir at the UN General Assembly is “predictable” and an “old song” which the world has stopped listening to, said Indian experts and politicians of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s statement that Kashmir is a “core issue” which needs to be resolved and that the UN must intervene in the “dispute”.
They added that Islamabad, while harking back to the 1948 UN resolution on Kashmir on self-determination, appears to have conveniently forgotten its first requirements – that Pakistan withdraw its armed forces and irregulars from the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the part occupied by Pakistan, and that its administration be handed over to India.
India’s former envoy to Pakistan, G. Parthasarathy, said he was not surprised at Islamabad raking up the issue of plebiscite or self-determination for Jammu and Kashmir and added that it is the “normal thing” for Pakistan and “they do it every year in the UN”.
He said India’s UN mission has a standard way of responding to it and “there the matter ends”.
But while talking of plebiscite, he said: “They (Pakistan) forget that the UN resolution which was then passed (1948) required Pakistan to withdraw all its armed forces and irregulars from the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the administration would thereafter be manned by India.
“The fact is they never withdrew. So where is the question of plebiscite? The first condition of plebiscite they did not meet.”
He said the UN resolution was in two parts – requiring the withdrawal of Pakistani forces and that the administration to be run by India.
“There was no call for withdrawal of Indian forces from Jammu and Kashmir. The resolution called for withdrawal of Pakistani forces,” Parthasarathy told IANS
Well-known strategic expert C. Uday Bhaskar too spoke on similar lines.
Describing Sharif’s speech as “predictable”, he said “it would have been news if he had not mentioned Kashmir”.
He said with the background of India calling off the foreign secretary level talks last month, Islamabad wanted to “use the forum to make a point about Kashmir and to internationalise the issue”.
Bhaskar, who is the director of the Society for Policy Studies, told IANS that the UN resolution called for the Pakistani military and irregulars to “completely vacate the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir and that the demography has to be returned to its original profile”.
He added that India’s case is that “plebiscite is no longer a valid issue” after the signing of the 1972 Simla accord, according to which both countries “have agreed that it is a bilateral issue, and so the international community or any other third party has no longer a stand”.
Bhaskar also feels that Sharif’s speech was not written by the Pakistan foreign office “but in Rawalpindi”, the general headquarters of the Pakistani army. He said all the points in his speech “in many ways reflects the views of Rawalpindi than the foreign office”.
Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal said Sharif had “made the worst possible statement he could have made”. He said Sharif had made Kashmir a central issue and was going back to 1948.
“Then there cannot be meeting of minds,” Sibal told IANS.
He said Sharif had made “hardline” remarks “knowing that India will be carefully looking” at what he says in view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to improve ties with India’s neighbours.
He said Sharif had “pushed back by several months” any possibility of a dialogue.
A Congress leader condemned Sharif’s remarks and said Pakistan should stop day dreaming.
General secretary Shakeel Ahmed told IANS: “Pakistan should stop day-dreaming. It is a bilateral issue. It was not proper for Pakistan to raise it at the UN.”
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nalin Kohli said Pakistan was not tired of singing “the same old song on Kashmir year after year”. “The world has stopped taking notice of this.”
He said Sharif was perhaps “desperately trying to create an agenda” by referring to Kashmir.
“Before expressing concern on the status of women in Kashmir, it will do well for Sharif to reflect on the status of women his country.
“The world is not going to be fooled by Pakistan’s rhetoric to deflect attention from its serious internal problems,” Kohli said.