Decolonisation issue: Pakistan, India spar in UN debate

Pakistan tells UN that colonisation still existed unless the Kashmir dispute was resolved.

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan told the United Nations on Monday that colonisation still existed unless the Kashmir dispute was resolved. Ambassador Raza Bashir Tarar, deputy representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the General Assembly that the inalienable right to self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir is recognised by a number of Security Council Resolutions. “Pakistan is committed to finding a peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute acceptable to all sides, especially the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” he added. The remarks drew an immediate reply from his counterpart Prakash Gupta who said that Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India, adding that the people had chosen their fate in accordance with the democratic elections. In his response, Ambassador Tarar said that the representative of India had made an untenable assertion that Jammu and Kashmir was irrelevant to the decolonisation debate saying that Jammu and Kashmir has never been and will never become a part of India.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2012.