(Photo courtesy: UNSC)
(TibetanReview.net, Aug06’20) – Reacting with anger over China’s move to again raise the issue of the abrogation of the special constitutional status of Jammu & Kashmir one year ago in the UN Security Council, India on Aug 6 asked China “not to comment on the internal affairs” of other countries.
“Firmly” rejecting Beijing’s “interference” in the country’s internal affairs, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement, “This was not the first time that China has sought to raise a subject that is solely an internal matter of India. As on such previous occasions, this attempt too met with little support from the international community.”
“We firmly reject China’s interference in our internal affairs and urge it to draw proper conclusions from such infructuous attempts,” the statement said.
The statement came after China backed a move on behalf of its superlative friend Pakistan to discuss the Kashmir issue at a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council. It coincided with the first anniversary on Aug 5 of India’s decision to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and to split it into two union territories.
The statement also came a day after New Delhi tersely asked Beijing to keep out of the internal affairs of other countries after the latter contended that India’s “unilateral” changes to the status of Jammu and Kashmir were “illegal and invalid”, a reiteration of its last year’s comments.
This was the third time within a year that China raised the Kashmir issue at the UN Security Council using what is known as the “any other business” (AOB) item of the agenda, hindustantimes.com Aug 6 cited people familiar with developments as saying. It noted that China had previously brought up the issue in August last year and in January.
Prior to this, the last time the Kashmir issue was on the Security Council’s agenda was in 1971, the report noted.
The report quoted a tweet from India’s permanent representative to the UN, TS Tirumurti, as saying: “Another attempt by Pakistan fails! In today’s meeting of UN Security Council 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.”
China has repeatedly sought to get the UN Security Council to either act against India on the issue of Jammu & Kashmir or to refrain from acting on the latter’s concerns about Pakistan-based terrorists. On both the efforts China has not received any support from other members of the UN Security Council.
