Pakistan Urges UN to Act on Kashmir, Warns Peace in South Asia Impossible Without Settlement
UNITED NATIONS -- Pakistan has urged the United Nations Security Council to "actively" pursue a just settlement of the Kashmir dispute, warning that lasting peace in South Asia cannot be achieved until the decades-old conflict is resolved in line with international resolutions and the will of the Kashmiri people.
Addressing the UN General Assembly's Special Political and Decolonization Committee, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN, said Islamabad seeks "peaceful and cooperative" ties with India, but insisted peace "cannot be built on injustice and denial of rights."
He called on New Delhi to end human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir and to rescind its "unilateral and unlawful measures" taken since August 2019, when India revoked the region's special status.
Citing the UN's historic Declaration on Decolonization, Ahmad said the Kashmiri people, like Palestinians, remain denied their inalienable right to self-determination. He drew a parallel to the ongoing war in Gaza, stressing that "occupation must end, for it is the root cause of instability in the region."
Ahmad reaffirmed Pakistan's support for the creation of a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, while also demanding an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian access in Gaza.
On Kashmir, he emphasized that Security Council resolutions -- accepted by both India and Pakistan -- explicitly call for a UN-supervised plebiscite to determine the region's future. For more than seven decades, he said, India has "evaded its obligations through repression, deception, and brute force."
The envoy described Kashmir as the world's most militarized zone, with over 900,000 Indian troops enforcing "a reign of terror" marked by extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, torture, and demographic engineering. He accused India of pursuing a "settler-colonial project" to alter the region's Muslim majority through mass issuance of domicile certificates and land seizures.
"Despite this repression," Ahmad said, "the Kashmiri people continue their courageous struggle for freedom, rejecting India's illegal measures."
Pakistan, he concluded, will continue to press for the "unfinished agenda of decolonization," arguing that the UN's credibility rests on honoring its promises.