Guterres to visit Pakistan next week to address int’l conference, meet country’s leadership: Spokesman

IFTIKHAR ALI

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 (APP):United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will pay a three-day visit to Pakistan from Feb 16 — first in his capacity as the world body’s chief — during which he will address an International Conference on 40 Years of Hosting Afghan Refugees in Pakistan, and meet Prime Minister Imran Khan and senior government officials, a UN spokesman announced Monday.

The two-day conference, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan, is being organized in Islamabad by the Government of Pakistan and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Although Guterres has been to Pakistan several times as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, this will be his first visit as the UN Secretary-General.

Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said the Secretary-General would speak at the International Conference, along with High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, and would participate in a high-level panel discussion and other events at that conference.

The Secretary-General, the High Commissioner and the Pakistan Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, would also speak to the press, he said.

The UN chief will also meet President Arif Alvi on Monday.

The spokesman said the Secretary-General would be in Lahore on Tuesday, Feb 18, where he would meet students and attend an event on Pakistan’s polio vaccination campaign.
The UN chief will also travel to Kartarpur to visit Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib before returning to New York on Wednesday, Feb 19.

Diplomats here noted that the visit is taking place amid heightening tensions between India and Pakistan resulting from New Delhi’s annexation of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5 when the disputed state was placed under a military lockdown followed by mass arrests of Kashmiris, including their political leaders, under a communications blockade.

On his part, the UN chief has been expressing serious concern over the deteriorating situation in Kashmir and calling for a dialogue between the two countries, saying that any solution should be rooted in the respect for human rights of the Kashmiri people.

Besides issuing statements calling for restraint as firing across the Line of Control (LoC) in the Kashmir region escalated amid threats to Pakistan from the Indian leadership, the UN chief has discussed the issue of Kashmir with Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi. But Guterres has reported no progress in his bid to move India and Pakistan to the negotiating table.

Three days after India unilaterally revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, the Secretary-General reaffirmed UN’s stand on the core dispute between India and Pakistan, which remains on the Security Council’s agenda.

“The position of the United Nations on this region is governed by the Charter of the United Nations and applicable Security Council resolutions,” he said.

“The Secretary-General also recalls the 1972 Agreement on bilateral relations between India and Pakistan, also known as the Simla Agreement,” the statement continued, “which states that the final status of Jammu and Kashmir is to be settled by peaceful means”, in accordance with the UN Charter.

The Secretary-General said he was “concerned over reports of restrictions on the Indian-side of Kashmir, which could exacerbate the human rights situation in the region,” and called on “all parties to refrain from taking steps that could affect the status of Jammu and Kashmir.”

The Secretary-General has also repeatedly asserted that his good offices are available only if both sides ask for it. While Pakistan welcomed his offer, India rejected it.

The UN has long maintained an institutional presence in the contested area between India and Pakistan. According to the Security Council mandate given in resolution 307 of 1971, the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) observes and reports on ceasefire violations along and across the Line of Control and the Working Boundary between the South Asian neighbours in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as reports developments that could lead to ceasefire violations.

In its efforts to seek justice for the Kashmiri people suffering under a repressive lockdown, Pakistan also turned to the UN Security Council, which discussed the crisis three times in less than six months. In its last meeting on Jan 15, he said all 15 members voiced their concern over the human rights violations in occupied Kashmir and called for an end to those abuses.

Meanwhile, besides Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and other high-ranking UN officials and independent human rights rapporteurs had condemned the Indian actions and reiterated Jammu and Kashmir’s disputed status and that it should be resolved according to the UNSC resolutions that pledged the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people.