NEW YORK, Sep 12 (APP): A prominent Kashmiri leader has voiced grave concern over the deteriorating situation in the Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to dispatch a special envoy to help resolve the decades-old Kashmir dispute.
In a statement, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary-General of the Washington-based World Kashmir Awareness Forum, said the envoy should visit all parts of Jammu and Kashmir as well as capitals of India and Pakistan in a effort to “explore all possible options to settle the Kashmir dispute to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.”
“The matter is much too urgent to be relegated to the routine mechanism of the (Geneva-based) Human Rights Council and the various bodies established to monitor various conventions,” he said. In this regard, Fai thanked Guterres for affirming UN position that the Kashmir conflict should be resolved under the UN Charter and applicable UN Security Council resolutions, and urged him to alert the Council’s permanent members that the existing India-China confrontation, and the constant India-Pakistan hostilities – all nuclear powers – will lead the whole region to the nuclear catastrophe.
“We trust that the world powers in general and the United Nations in particular will bring immense moral and political influence to bear on initiating a peace process which will lead to a speedy, just and honourable settlement of the dispute and restore to the people of Kashmir their inalienable right to self-determination.”
In his statement , the Kashmiri leader also dismissed India’s demand that UN Security Council take the Kashmir dispute off its agenda as it was “outdated”. According to UNSC’s rules, he said, it can only be removed if the conflict has been resolved or there is a consensus among all 15 members of the Security Council to remove a particular agenda item. “In case of Kashmir, none of these conditions apply,” he said.
The presence of the United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) in the disputed region, Fai said, affirms that the Security Council remains seized of the Kashmir dispute.
