A year after special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 was revoked, China on Wednesday raised the issue of the situation in J&K at the United Nations Security Council in New York. This is the third time the issue has been raised since last year — J&K was raised in August last year and again in January this year, but like previous occasions, there was no resolution.
Sources said it was raised under “any other business” in the meeting. Pakistan Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi tweeted, “This 3rd meeting in a year by the UN Security Council serves as a stark repudiation to the Indian claim that Jammu and Kashmir is an ‘internal matter’.”
Earlier in the day, China once again called India’s move in J&K “illegal and invalid”, with India reacting sharply to this, saying that Beijing has “no locus standi” on the matter.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, in response to questions, “China closely follows the situation in the Kashmir region. Our position on the Kashmir issue is consistent and clear. First, the Kashmir issue is a dispute left over from history between Pakistan and India, which is an objective fact established by the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements between Pakistan and India.
“Second, any unilateral change to the status quo in the Kashmir region is illegal and invalid. Third, the Kashmir region issue should be properly and peacefully resolved through dialogue and consultation between the parties concerned.”
In response, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, “We have noted the comments of the Chinese MFA spokesperson on the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The Chinese side has no locus standi whatsoever on this matter and is advised not to comment on the internal affairs of other nations.”
In Geneva, meanwhile, UN human rights experts called on India and the international community to take “urgent action” to address the “alarming” human rights situation in the region. “If India will not take any genuine and immediate steps to resolve the situation, meet their obligations to investigate historic and recent cases of human rights violations and prevent future violations, then the international community should step up,” the experts said.
These UN experts include Agnès Callamard, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Ahmed Shaheed, special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; and Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, special rapporteur on rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, among others.
