Pakistan again raises Kashmir at UN Security Council

Pakistan has raised the Kashmir issue yet again at the UN Security Council, trying to twin it with the Palestinian problem.

At a Council meeting on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict on Tuesday, Pakistan's Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi said: "Crimes continue to be perpetrated in Palestine and Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, two of the oldest disputes on the agenda of this Council."

The Geneva Conventions on protection of civilians during conflict "are violated, respect for human life violated, and civilians are used as human shields in occupied territories", she said.

India considers Kashmir an integral part of the country and the developments there an internal matter.

India has tended more often to ignore the Pakistani taunts at the UN as no other country pays any attention to them.

As India's Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin has pointed out in the past, in the 193-member UN, only Pakistan brings up Kashmir repeatedly and none of the other 192 members takes notice.

India maintains that according to the 1972 Shimla agreement between then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was then the President of Pakistan, the dispute over Kashmir is a bilateral issue and the two countries should directly deal with it.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

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