Ban met with Sharif here on Wednesday on the margins of the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly.
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“Even today we heard support by the Pakistan PM for a self acknowledged commander of known terrorist org Hizbul Mujahideen”, said India referring to Nawaz Sharif’s praise for Burhan Wani. Talks between the two countries have repeatedly stalled over India’s demands for more information on the attack’s planners, but Pakistan says the Kashmir issue needs to be solved first. “They are in the interest of both countries”.
In “glorifying” a terrorist like Burhan Wani, a Hizbul Mujahideen commander who was killed in an encounter with security forces on July 8, Sharif only reiterated where his and his country’s sympathies and support lies, he added.
“The people of Kashmir have waited 70 years for implementation of this promise (right to self-determination)”, he said, as he called for an end to Indian brutalities and oppression as well as curfews.
About Pakistan submitting a dossier against India to the UN, Swarup said there was no mention of such thing in the read-out given by the Secretary General’s Office.
Nawaz told the gathering in NY that Pakistan had been the principal victim of terrorism, and the country had lost thousands of civilians and security officials in terrorism-related incidents.
Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan since 1947, is at the heart the neighbours’ seven decades of distrust. “Shows continued Pak attachment to terrorism”, the Indian ministry spokesman, Vikas Swarup, said on Twitter.
The clashes came three days after four suspected rebels killed 18 Indian soldiers in an audacious attack on a crucial military base in Uri.
On Wednesday, the Pakistan Premier had addressed Wani as a “young leader” who was “murdered by Indian forces”.
Asserting that the latest terrorist attack in Uri only underlines that the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan remains active, Jaishankar demanded that Pakistan lives up to its public commitment to refrain from supporting and sponsoring terrorism against India. He demanded an “independent inquiry into the extrajudicial killings” and a United Nations fact-finding mission to Kashmir “so that those guilty of these atrocities are punished”.
He also rejected Sharif’s allegations against India with regard to the current unrest in Kashmir and said, “Kashmir occupation is by Pakistan occupation army”.
“The UN Security Council has called for the exercise of the right to self-determination by the people of Jammu and Kashmir through a free and fair plebiscite held under UN auspices”, Sharif said during the general debate of the 71st session of General Assembly of the United Nations in NY.
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India has said it would only discuss terrorism-related issues, whereas Pakistan wants a wider agenda that would, among other things, discuss the Kashmir question.
