China warned to stay out of Kashmir dispute
India/pakistan
India warned China yesterday to stay out of a dispute over Kashmir’s status after Pakistan said it would take the issue to the United Nations Security Council with the support of Beijing.
It also condemned as ‘‘irresponsible’’ a series of tweets from Pakistani officials – including Imran Khan, the prime minister – comparing the Indian government to ‘‘Nazis’’ and ‘‘fascists’’.
Khan had said the ‘‘ideology of Hindu Supremacy, like the Nazi Aryan Supremacy, will not stop’’ in Kashmir.
India’s foreign minister issued the warning to China after his Pakistani counterpart went there to seek allies for a UN resolution against New Delhi’s revoking of Kashmir’s autonomy.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar flew to Beijing to see Wang Yi, China’s most senior diplomat, saying that ‘‘the two nations should ensure that it was important that differences between us, if any, should not become disputes’’.
China’s foreign ministry said later that it had taken a ‘‘principled’’ stand on ‘‘unilateral’’ actions by India, and urged New Delhi to play a constructive role in regional peace and stability.
But India’s ministry of external affairs said decisions on Kashmir were ‘‘an internal matter concerning the territory of India’’.
A ministry spokesman said: ‘‘India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise.’’ The row spilt over into a Los Angeles beauty event, where Priyanka Chopra, a former Bollywood actress, was accused of ‘‘encouraging nuclear war’’ over an Instagram caption in which she wrote ‘‘Jai Hind’’, meaning ‘‘victory to India’’ and added the hashtag #Indianarmedforces.
Referring to the post from February, an audience member at a beauty panel told her: ‘‘You are a Unicef ambassador for peace and you’re encouraging nuclear war against Pakistan. There’s no winner in this.’’ But Chopra said: ‘‘War is not something that I’m really fond of, but I am patriotic.’’
China described India’s revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, in place since Partition in 1957, as ‘‘unacceptable’’ and a threat to its territorial sovereignty. In addition to the territorial struggle between India and Pakistan, China also lays claim to a strip of Kashmir, Aksai Chin.
After Friday’s meeting between Wang and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the Pakistani foreign minister, the Chinese diplomat expressed grave concern about the situation in Kashmir, the cause of two wars between India and Pakistan.
Wang had assured Qureshi that Beijing would continue to support Pakistan to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.