Pakistan to take India's move to annex occupied Kashmir to UNSC

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Thursday announced that Pakistan would take the matter of India revoking the special status for occupied Kashmir to the United Nations Security Council. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, he said the decision had been taken in light of several pre-existing UN resolutions on the Kashmir dispute.

The minister said Pakistan rejected New Delhi's impression that scrapping Article 370 of the Indian constitution was its "internal matter", saying the claim was wrong from a historical, legal and moral perspective.

He also questioned India's claim that the change in the constitutional status was aimed at taking steps for the welfare of Kashmiris, wondering what had stopped New Delhi from taking such measures since Article 370 was inserted into the Indian constitution seven decades ago.

Noting that as many as 900,000 troops had been deployed in occupied Kashmir, he asked the Indian government whether turning the region into a virtual "jail" was one of its welfare steps. Challenging India's claim that the Kashmir move was its internal matter, Qureshi said former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had declared "countless times" making at least 14 solemn promises and commitments that "the future of Kashmir is going to be decided finally by the goodwill and pleasure of her people."

"The goodwill and pleasure of this (Indian) parliament is of no importance in this matter," the minister quoted Nehru as further saying. In an address to the nation in 1947, Nehru had said: "We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. We will not, and cannot, back out of it."

According to Qureshi, Nehru had told the Indian constituent assembly on one occasion that, "As soon as peace and order have been established, Kashmir should decide of accession by plebiscite or referendum under international auspices such as the United Nations."

"If however, the people of Kashmir do not wish to remain with us, let them go by all means. We will not keep them against their will however painful it may be to us. I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir," the minister quoted the former Indian premier as saying in one instance. Citing his conversation with Federica Mogherini, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Qureshi said it was India, and not Pakistan, that was avoiding to resolve the Kashmir issue through dialogue.