Nawaz Sharif to use ‘force’ at UN for Kashmir

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will “forcefully” present Pakistan’s stance on the state-terrorism in Kashmir at the upcoming session of UN General Assembly in New York in September, the foreign office said Thursday.

Foreign office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said at a weekly news briefing that the Prime Minister was going to take this issue very forcefully at the UN platform. The spokesman said Pakistan always raised the issue of Jammu and Kashmir at the annual UNGA session and mentioned Nawaz Sharif’s speech during last year’s session “where he strongly highlighted the internationally recognized dispute.”

He said most of the UN Security Council members had already been taken onboard on the continued violation of human rights in Kashmir. Asked whether more dossiers would be presented to the United Nations about Indian involvement in subversive activities in Pakistan, the spokesman said investigations regarding the activities were in process following “the arrest of Indian spy Kalbhushan Yadav.”

“At appropriate time, we will further take action in this regard,” he added.

Pakistan said it was ready to allow the UN to send its team to its part of Jammu and Kashmir, days after India turned down a request by the UN rights council to travel to the Kashmir to investigate the alleged rights violations. Mr Sharif had written to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein “to end the persistent and egregious violation of the basic human rights of the Kashmiri people”.