United Nations Reiterates Offer To Resolve ‘Kashmir Dispute’

The UN chief further said that the position of the UN and the resolutions that were taken are the same and will remain the same.

NEW DELHI — United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has reiterated his offer to resolve the Kashmir issue, saying he has offered his good offices several times with the hope that this issue can be solved peacefully.

Despite his offer, India has rejected it in the past, saying the dispute with Pakistan is a bilateral matter, Times Now reported.

“I’d offered my good offices several times and we hope that this is something that can be solved peacefully,” he said at his news conference on Friday.

Responding to a question by a reporter on the Kashmir issue, he added that “he hoped the situation in Kashmir is a situation in which human rights are respected and in which people can live in peace and security”.

The UN chief further said that the position of the UN and the resolutions that were taken are the same and will remain the same.

The Secretary General pointed out that the United Nations has a peacekeeping operation in Kashmir, the UN Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan, which monitors the Line of Control in the disputed region.

Earlier Pakistan Ambassador to the United Nations called on the World body to step up its efforts and urgently resolve the Kashmir dispute to prevent a threat to regional and global peace and security.

“Peace and security must remain at the core of the functions of the United Nations,” Ambassador Munir Akram told the UN General Assembly on Friday while commenting on the report of the UN chief on the work of the organization.

“We urge the Security Council and the Secretary General to exercise their considerable authority to promote an early and peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and to end the Indian reign of terror against the Kashmiri people”, the Pakistani envoy said.

The United Nations and the Secretary General, he said, can do “much more” to address peace and security threats by fully using the authority provided by the United Nations Charter, such as in Article 99, and by taking action in the General Assembly if the Security Council is unable to do so.

The primary threat in South Asia, the Pakistani envoy said, is posed by the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir and “India’s attempt to annex and transform the Muslim majority state into Hindu majority territory”, a grave violation of Council resolutions that promised Kashmiris their right to self-determination through a United Nations supervised plebiscite.