Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi. (File photo) Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi. (File photo)

Pakistan has once again raked up the Kashmir issue at the Security Council by trying to link it to the Palestinian crisis. “Longstanding, internationally recognised disputes of Palestine and J&K continue to fester,” Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi told the Council on Wednesday ahead of the upcoming General Assembly emergency session on Jerusalem.

Having failed so far to get any international interest in Islamabad’s version of the Kashmir dispute, she brought in the Kashmir reference while speaking of “efforts to change the status of Jerusalem” because of US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise it as Israel’s capital and move Washington’s embassy there.

“The Palestinian and Kashmiri people continue to suffer horrific human rights violations at the hands of occupying forces, while the world continues to watch without addressing these egregious situations. All resolutions of the Security Council must be implemented uniformly and non-selectively,” she said in a reference to a 1948 resolution of the Council on Kashmir. “Selective implementation weakens multilateralism and the credibility of the UN,” Lodhi said.

India maintains that the resolution has been made redundant by the march of history. The plebiscite proposed in the resolution could not be held because Pakistan would not withdraw its troops from areas it occupied, and since then Kashmiris have elected their legislators and leaders.

Moreover, the 1972 Simla Agreement between India and Pakistan stipulates that all disputes should be settled bilaterally, precluding third party intervention. India did not respond to Lodhi’s comments. It has generally ignored attempts by Pakistan to talk about Kashmir at the UN as all member nations do not take notice of them.

One of those attempts in September, after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s speech at the General Assembly, backfired when Lodhi held up picture of an injured Palestinian girl claiming she was a Kashmiri.

Amid ridicule, Indian diplomat Paulomi Tripathi pointed out that Lodhi had “callously” exploited the picture of a Palestinian girl “to divert attention from Pakistan’s role as the hub of global terrorism”.

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