By Arul Louis
United Nations, Feb 24 (IANS) India dismissed Pakistan’s attempt to link Kashmir to the Ukraine situation calling it a mischievous provocation and advised it to look at New Delhi’s previous rights of reply, some of which weaponised humour.
Pratik Mathur, a counsellor at India’s UN Mission, said on Thursday: “India chooses this time not to respond to Pakistan’s mischievous provocations. Our advice to the delegate of Pakistan is to refer to our numerous rights of reply that we have exercised in the past.
“Pakistan has only to look at itself and its own track record as a state that harbours and provides safe havens to terrorists and does so with impunity.”
He was responding to Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Munir Akram, who brought up Kashmir while explaining why Islamabad abstained on a resolution calling on Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine.
India has repeatedly stressed in responses that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and any disputes between New Delhi and Islamabad are bilateral matters under the 1972 Simla Agreement between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was then the president.
It has also pointed out the role of Pakistan in promoting terrorism and its treatment of minorities.
But Indian diplomats have poked fun at Pakistan in their responses to disarm it.
In a memorable line, a diplomat said of Pakistan, “the land of Taxila, one of the greatest learning centres of ancient times, is now host to the Ivy League of terrorism”.
India has lampooned Pakistan as having a “Pavlovian response” for raising Kashmir regardless of the topic under discussion at the UN.
And because its attempts are ignored by other members of the UN, Pakistan ritualistically brings up Kashmir which an Indian diplomat has described as “ploughing a lonely furrow”.
On another occasion, an Indian diplomat said after hearing former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s talk about terrorism, “we were left wondering, was he referring to himself?”
Here are some other comments by Indian diplomats:
“This is the country which is an arsonist disguising itself as a firefighter.”
“Pakistan is now ‘Terroristan’ with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism.”
Its “contribution to the globalisation of terror is unparalleled”.
After the resolution proposed by Ukraine and over 65 countries was adopted, Akram said that Pakistan supports the “resolution’s call for respect for the principle of the sovereignty, sovereign equality and territorial integrity of states and non-acquisition of territory by the threat or use of force”.
One of the explanations he gave for the abstention was that “Pakistan regrets that these principles have not been universally applied and respected, for instance, in the situation of foreign occupation, and the ongoing attempt at the illegal and forcible annexation of Jammu and Kashmir”.
(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)
–IANS
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