By holding G20 meeting, India fails to hide IIOJK reality behind veneer of normalcy: FO
Celina Ali
Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday said that by holding G-20 meeting in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, India clearly failed in hiding the reality in IIOJK behind a veneer of normalcy.
The Foreign Office spokesperson, in a statement, said that the Indian failure was demonstrated by low-level representation and the absence of a number of important invitees at the Srinagar meeting.
Rejecting the Indian move to hold the G-20 Tourism Working Group in Srinagar held on May 22-24, the spokesperson said Jammu and Kashmir was an internationally recognized disputed territory.
Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that the Kashmir dispute had remained on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council for over seven decades.
In that backdrop, India hosted this meeting in IIOJK in complete disregard of the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, principles of the UN Charter and international law.
“Holding the G-20 meeting in disputed territory is a betrayal of the people of IIOJK. For the last seven decades, they have been waiting for the international community to pay attention to their plight and to bring an end to the occupation and human rights violations,” the spokesperson added.
She said tourism and development could not be promoted by holding the local population hostage and denying them their rights and freedoms.
The spokesperson said that by holding the G-20 meeting in Srinagar, India could not hide the reality of its illegal occupation of IIOJK and oppression of the Kashmiri people.
“India’s facade of normalcy in Kashmir is met by the harsh reality that IIOJK remains one of the most militarized zones on the planet. The extreme security measures, arbitrary arrests and harassment of the local population around the Srinagar meeting refute the claims of normalcy in the colonized territory,” she highlighted.
The spokesperson greatly appreciated the People’s Republic of China, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Türkiye, the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Sultanate of Oman for not attending the Srinagar meeting.
“These countries have stood for international law and for the primacy of the UN Charter,” she added.
The G-20 was established, primarily, to address global financial and economic issues. By holding this meeting in the occupied territory, India has politicized yet another international forum, and is exploiting its position as the current Chair to advance its self-serving agenda.
The spokesperson said that India should instead provide unhindered access to the international media and independent human rights organizations to report on the situation in IIOJK.
“It must bring an end to the repression it has unleashed there, agree to the establishment of the UN Commission of Inquiry and hold a UN supervised plebiscite for the people of Kashmir to determine their own future.”
The spokesperson said that Pakistan, for its part, would continue to extend its moral, diplomatic and political support to the Kashmiri people’s just struggle for realization of their inalienable right to self-determination, as enshrined in the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.
