ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, while categorically rejecting Indian defence minister's "unwarranted" comments regarding Gilgit-Baltistan, on Tuesday said that India had no locus standi whatsoever on the issue - historical, legal, or moral.
"Pakistan categorically rejects the Indian Defence Minister's unwarranted comments regarding Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). India has no locus standi whatsoever on the issue - historical, legal, or moral," Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhry said, while reacting to Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's statement.
In a Twitter message, Rajnath Singh had claimed Gilgit-Baltistan being "an integral part of India."
"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 Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)," Chaudhri stated in response.
He said that Pakistan's principled position on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute remained firmly anchored in the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. He said that administrative, political and economic reforms were a long-standing demand of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The envisaged provisional reforms reflect the aspirations of the indigenous populace of Gilgit-Baltistan. "Pakistan calls upon India to immediately end its illegal and forcible occupation of parts of Jammu and Kashmir," he said, adding that India must comply with its international obligations by allowing the Kashmiris to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations as enshrined in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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