India on Wednesday asserted that Pakistan needs to focus on the hard tasks it has to address in order to ensure normal relations. This came after Pakistan tried to raise the Kashmir issue in the UN Security Council where it failed yet again to find any support. However, Pakistan’s strong ally, China stood alone in the Pakistani corner to get the Security Council to focus on the Kashmir issue.
Apart from China, all the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council - France, Russia, the US and the UK felt Kashmir is a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan.
What India's UN representative Syed Akbaruddin said on UNSC meet
Reacting to this, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said: “We once again saw an effort made by one-member state of the UN, fail in plain view of all others”.
“We are happy that neither alarmist scenario painted by the representatives of Pakistan nor any of the baseless allegations made repeatedly by representatives of Pakistan in the UN fora were found to be credible today,” Akbaruddin told news agency PTI.
“We are glad that the effort was viewed as a distraction and it was pointed by many friends that bilateral mechanisms are available to raise and address issues that Pakistan may have in its ties with India,” he said.
Akbaruddin further said that “Pakistan’s practice of using false pretenses to distract from addressing the malaise that afflicts it has run its course. We hope that Pakistan pays heed to the clear signals sent out here today and focusses on the hard tasks it has to address in order to ensure normal relations with India.”
Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun's on UNSC meet
Coming out of the meeting, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun said: “We had a meeting on Jammu and Kashmir. And I’m sure you all know that Foreign Minister of Pakistan wrote letters to the Security Council asking the Security Council to pay attention to the current situation in Jammu and kashmir.
“The issue of India and Pakistan has always been on the agenda of the Security Council and today we have also seen some tensions, so the Security Council had a briefing and heard at the briefing from the Secretariat concerning the current situation on the ground. Members exchanged views on that”.
Zhang later said China “has stated our position very clearly. We remain concern about the situation on the ground (in Kashmir).”