India berates Pak for spewing venom, false narrative on Kashmir

| | New Delhi/ United Nations
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India berates Pak for spewing venom, false narrative on Kashmir

Friday, 24 January 2020 | PNS/PTI | New Delhi/ United Nations

Brushing aside Prime Minister Imran Khan’s plea for global intervention to prevent a showdown between “two nuclear armed” nations, New Delhi on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump’s offer of “ help” to resolve the matter insisting that Kashmir issue was a bilateral issue.

India also asked Pakistan to take verifiable action against terror groups active there and blamed it for “spewing venom and false narratives” in the United Nations, saying it takes to hate speech like ‘a fish takes to water” on the Kashmir issue.

Addressing the media along with the Pakistan Prime Minister in Davos on Tuesday, Trump said the US was watching the developments related to Kashmir “very closely” and repeated his offer to “help” resolve the matter.

Reacting to Khan’s call to the global community, the External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Raveesh Kumar said Pakistan efforts would be better spent in taking verifiable action against terror groups on its territory than trying to “distract” the global community.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Davos meet, Imran Khan had urged international powers — including the UN and the US —  to help de-escalate tensions between India and Pakistan before things get to a point of no return.

 “You cannot have two nuclear-armed countries even contemplating a conflict,” he said, claiming that there was every possibility of India trying to raise tensions at the border to “divert attention from domestic issues” such as protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA). Among the demands made by the Pakistan Prime Minister was the positioning of a UN Military Observer Group along the Line of Control (LoC) between the two countries.

Meanwhile, India’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Ambassador K Nagaraj Naidu, slammed Pakistan for “spewing venom and false narratives” of monumental proportions in the United Nations.

He said it (Pakistan) takes to hate speech like a “fish takes to water’ and “obfuscates” the international community from the truth as Islamabad yet again raked up the Kashmir issue at the world body.

Pakistan has repeatedly brought up the Kashmir issue at various UN platforms in a bid to internationalise it but has failed to get any support. Last week, Islamabad failed in its efforts to get any traction from the membership of the UN Security Council when its ‘all-weather ally’ China made another pitch to raise the issue in the 15-nation Council. There was consensus among the rest of the Council members that Kashmir is a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan.

Speaking at a session of the General Assembly on ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization’ on Wednesday in New York, Naidu said Pakistan “indulges in confabulations and obfuscates the international community from the truth” instead of putting an end to the “bellicose and vitriolic diatribe” and taking steps to restore normal ties.

“Just like a fish takes to water, one delegation has again taken to hate speech. Every time this delegation speaks, it spews venom and false narratives of monumental proportions.

“It’s extremely surprising that a country that has completely decimated its minority population talks about protecting minorities. Pakistan’s practice of using false pretenses to distract from addressing the malaise that afflicts it has run its course. Pakistan needs to reflect that there are no takers for its false rhetoric and should get down to the normal business of diplomacy,” Naidu said.

The Indian response came after Saad Ahmed Warraich, Counsellor at Pakistan mission to the UN, raised the issue of Jammu & Kashmir in his remarks during the session.

In New Delhi, the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said regarding the Pakistan Prime Minister’s plea, “his remarks suggest that he is desperate and rapidly losing hope. The global community can now see through their double standards. While they pretend to be victims of terrorism on the one hand, they foster extremists who spread terrorism in India and other countries on the other,” he said.

Kumar also said Pakistan’s attempts to create an “alarmist situation” in Kashmir have failed miserably. “Our position on Kashmir has been clear and consistent through the years. These are bilateral issues that need to be discussed between India and Pakistan, and there is no role for a third party in this situation,” he said, adding that Imran Khan should resolve issues in “his own country” before looking elsewhere. 

These observations came after Trump’s offer to mediate during his meeting with the Pakistan Prime Minister in Davos on Tuesday. Kumar said there is no role for any third party in the Kashmir issue which has to be resolved bilaterally with Pakistan and the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment for engagement. He also maintained that the World Economic Forum was not an appropriate platform to discuss such issues.

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