Kashmir still a burning issue, Erdogan tells UNGA

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday raised the Jammu and Kashmir issue in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, calling for the resolution of the decades-old dispute between Pakistan in India in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

The Turkish leader also criticised the “countries that have declared their intention to open embassies in Jerusalem, in violation of United Nations resolutions and international law”, accusing them of making the Palestinian conflict “more complicated” to resolve.

Last year, Erdogan had also called for dialogue for the solution of the Kashmir issue in his address to the 74 session of the General Assembly. He had stressed that stability and prosperity of South Asia could not be separated from the Kashmir issue.

Addressing the 193-member gathering on Tuesday, Erdogan reminded the international community that the Kashmir dispute was still a “burning issue”, while the unilateral steps taken by India on August 5 last year further complicated the problem.

“The Kashmir conflict, which is also key to the stability and peace of South Asia, is still a burning issue,” Erdogan said. “Steps taken following the abolition of the special status of Jammu-Kashmir further complicated the problem,” he added.

“We are in favour of solving this issue through dialogue, within the framework of the United Nations resolutions and especially in line with the expectations of the people of Kashmir,” the Turkish leader said.

On domestic issues, Erdogan called for “sincere” dialogue to settle the growing row with Greece over energy search in the eastern Mediterranean. “Our priority is to settle disputes with sincere dialogue, based on international law and on an equitable basis,” Erdogan said

Erdogan said Turkey, a Nato ally, also said that the Palestinian conflict could only be resolved with the establishment of an independent, sovereign, and contiguous State of Palestine based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Earlier in the day, leaders of the world's two largest economies, China and the US, laid out their competing visions as relations between the two plunged to their worst level in decades as the coronavirus tensions aggravating their trade and technology disputes.

US President Donald Trump used his General Assembly speech to attack China’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that Beijing must be held accountable for having “unleashed this plague onto the world”.

By contrast, China’s President Xi Jinping struck a conciliatory tone in his pre-recorded virtual address, calling for enhanced cooperation over the pandemic and stressing that China had no intention of fighting “either a Cold War or a hot war with any country”.

Trump, facing a November re-election with his country dealing with the world's highest death toll from the contagion, accused Beijing of allowing people to leave China in the early stages of the outbreak to infect the world while shutting down domestic travel.

In an implicit rebuke to Trump, President Xi called for a global response to the coronavirus and giving a leading role to the World Health Organisation (WHO). "Facing the virus, we should enhance solidarity and get through this together," he said.