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New York, 30 August, 2018
Pakistan told the UN Security Council that unimplemented resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir are testing the Security Council’s credibility as well as the objective of durable peace in the region.
Speaking in the debate on the Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Mediation and Settlement of Disputes, Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN, Maleeha Lodhi reminded the 15-member Security Council that the Jammu and Kashmir dispute remains among the oldest issues on the agenda of the Council.
But the non-enforcement of several resolutions on occupied Kashmir had put at stake both the Council’s credibility as well as the objective of durable peace in the region, she said and emphasized that “we must not fail these tests”.
Through its various resolutions, Ambassador Lodhi pointed out, the Security Council has provided that “the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations”.
She recounted several mechanisms instituted by the Security Council to resolve the Kashmir dispute. “These measures included the UN Commission on India and Pakistan (UNCIP), the deployment of the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) and the appointment of distinguished Representatives of the United Nations, who consulted the parties and submitted reports on how to resolve the dispute in accordance with provisions of the Security Council resolutions.”
“Sadly”, she declared, “resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir remain unimplemented to date.” “The international community cannot succeed in its efforts to strengthen conflict prevention and promote pacific dispute settlement if the Security Council’s own resolutions are held in abeyance, by some”, she said.
Pointing out that the UN’s record in mediating political settlements was checkered, Ambassador Lodhi called for a comprehensive approach to address volatile situations before they erupt, prevent disputes from escalating into conflict and to contain and resolve conflicts when they occur, or indeed fester.
The Pakistani envoy underlined that tensions and turbulence have re-emerged with greater intensity in various parts of the world, which has made the international security environment more uncertain than ever.
“The world seems to be afflicted by greater turmoil and persisting conflicts instead of living up to the UN Charter principles of peace and justice”, she said.
She called for a preventive strategy while supporting the Secretary General’s call for a ‘surge in diplomacy’ for peace, which she said was both urgent and important, for, as she put it, it costs far more to pick up the pieces after a conflict than it does to prevent one.
The Security Council, Ambassador Lodhi said, with its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, has a critical role in this prevention-centric agenda. “It must operationalize the full repository of measures, set out in Chapter VI of the Charter, as the centerpiece of the global peace and security architecture”.
The Security Council meeting, convened by the United Kingdom, began with briefings by Musarrat Qadeem, Executive Director of a Pakistani NGO and the British Archbishop of Canterbury.