ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has categorically rejected Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s unwarranted comments regarding Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).
The Foreign Office (FO) in a statement on Tuesday said that India has no locus standi whatsoever on the issue. It said that gratuitous repetition of false claims by the RSS-BJP leaders, one after the other, for political point-scoring can neither change facts nor can it draw attention away from the reprehensible human rights violations being perpetrated against the Kashmiri people by Indian occupation forces in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).
The FO said that Pakistan’s principled position on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute remains firmly anchored in the relevant United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions. It said that administrative, political and economic reforms are a long-standing demand of the people of GB. The envisaged provisional reforms reflect the aspirations of the indigenous populace of the autonomous region.
The FO called upon India to immediately end its illegal and forcible occupation of parts of Jammu and Kashmir. It said India must comply with its international obligations by allowing Kashmiris to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the UN as enshrined in the relevant UNSC resolutions.
Earlier on Monday, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that New Delhi has taken strong exception to Pakistan’s plan for granting provincial status to GB and made it clear that the entire Kashmir belongs to India.
Addressing election rallies in Bihar, Singh also slammed the Congress for having raised “doubts” in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s abilities in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack and questioned the party’s “silence” in the wake of a Pakistani minister’s admission that his country was responsible for the February 2019 offensive.
