ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said the conflicts in Kashmir and Palestine were the “most glaring and long standing failures” of United Nations.
He was virtually addressing the 75th anniversary event of the United Nations.
The Himalayan region of Kashmir has long been a flashpoint in ties between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan, with both claiming Kashmir in full but ruling it in part. UN peacekeepers have been deployed since 1949 to observe a cease-fire between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir.
“The Jammu & Kashmir and Palestine disputes are the Organization’s most glaring and long standing failures,“Qureshi said. “The people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir still await fulfillment of the commitment made to them by the United Nations to grant them their right to self-determination.”
The Security Council adopted several resolutions in 1948 and in the 1950s on the dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, including one which says a plebiscite should be held to determine the future of mostly Muslim Kashmir.
Another resolution calls upon both sides to “refrain from making any statements and from doing or causing to be done or permitting any acts which might aggravate the situation.”
Last August, India removed the decades-old autonomy enjoyed under the Indian constitution by the part of Kashmir it governs, unleashing tensions with Pakistan.
“Today, the UN is derided as a ‘talk shop’; its resolutions and decisions are flouted; international cooperation, especially in the Security Council, is at its lowest; force is threatened with abandon; critical Treaties and Covenants, designed to promote development and protect the globe’s fragile environment, are discarded,” Qureshi said.
The foreign minister added: “Where other countries … flout UN principles and claim privileged status at the high table only by virtue of size, strength and a misplaced sense of entitlement, Pakistan continues to bear without complaint, more than its fair share of burden.”
“It is my firm conviction that for the UN, its values and its architecture, there is no alternative,” he added. “We, the peoples of the United Nations, must rise up to reverse the tides of despair, and prevent forebodings from turning into self-fulfilling prophecies. In this noble endeavour, you will find Pakistan always by your side.”
