UNSC to hold closed-door talks over Kashmir issue

Tariq Butt / Agencies

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will hold a session to discuss the Kashmir dispute on Friday, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.

The meeting will take place behind closed doors on Friday morning, diplomats said.

Poland, which currently holds the council’s rotating presidency, has listed the matter for discussion at 10:00am (1400 GMT), the diplomats added.

Friday’s discussion is not considered a full security meeting but rather referred to as closed-door consultations, which are becoming increasingly more common, diplomats said.

Quoting diplomatic sources, Radio Pakistan on Thursday reported that the Kashmir dispute would be discussed under the agenda item “Pakistan-India question.”

The same was confirmed in another report, which quoted UNSC president Joanna Wronecka as saying: “The UNSC will discuss the Jammu and Kashmir situation behind closed doors most likely on Aug.16.”

The UNSC president, in response to a question, was quoted as saying that the session will “most probably” be on Friday as the UNSC would not operate on Thursday.

Radio Pakistan reported that the last time Kashmir found a reference in the UNSC was the UN Security Council Resolution 1172 in 1998 after Pakistan had conducted nuclear tests.

It was the first time in decades that the matter was being mentioned under the “India Pakistan question.”

A diplomat said that China had requested for the meeting through a letter and came up during the Council’s informal consultations on Wednesday.

The format of the meeting as a closed-door consultation would preclude Pakistan participating in it, the diplomat said.

As a closed-door meeting, the consultation’s proceedings would be secret, without being broadcast or accessible to reporters.

In a statement issued, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that he has written a letter to the UNSC president, asking the latter to convene an emergency meeting of the council to discuss the issue.

In a speech marking Indian Independence Day on Thursday Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the decision was one of several “path-breaking” moves by his newly re-elected administration.

He said “fresh thinking” was needed after seven decades of failure to ensure harmony in the picturesque but tragic former kingdom, where tens of thousands have died in the past 30 years.

Pakistan observed “Black Day” on Thursday to coincide with India’s independence day celebrations.