UNSC has an obligation to resolve the decades-old Kashmir issue: Maleeha Lodhi

Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Maleeha Lodhi said that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has an obligation to resolve the decades-old Kashmir problem by implementing its own resolutions that pledged the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people.

In an interview with Al-Arabiya television, Maleeha Lodhi said that Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK) had become an armed cage, urging the international community to intervene in the area before it was too late.

Maleeha Lodhi said over 700,000 Indian troops have been deployed and an additional number of troops have also been sent to the valley.

She said that an occupying power is using all instruments of repression, to subdue the people of Jammu and Kashmir and yet we also know from reports that we are receiving, and these are international media outlets receiving these reports, that over 500 protest demonstrations have already been held in the last 3 to 4 weeks, so people are resisting the kind of state terrorism that has been inflicted upon them.

She said Pakistan has raised the grave situation with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and at the Security Council.

She said we would like to see a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute and we would like to see a negotiated settlement and we would also like to see the UN live up to its responsibility.

The Pakistani envoy said that New Delhi had suspended the bilateral dialogue over three years ago and India refuses to talk to Pakistan and in any case, the bilateral track never limited Pakistan from raising the issue internationally because it is an international dispute and the Security Council has an obligation.