UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25: Ahead of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), India has sent a stern message to Islamabad on Kashmir. Calling Pakistan’s reference to Kashmir at the UNGA an “annual itch” for Pakistan, India’s permanent representative to UN Syed Akbaruddin said, “India is part of the mainstream of global community, if someone else wants to fritter away the time and have an annual itch, it is their choice.”
He said UNGA is a global forum that provides “everybody an opportunity”. “It can be used either to broaden friendships, strengthen collaborations or to follow tracks that have no resonance... each country has to do something that finds resonance,” he said.
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The sentiment was echoed by Dinesh Patnaik, head of the UN division within the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). “This is not the first time this is happening,” he said, adding that Pakistan wants to “act solo”. “They want to bring issues that are not part of multilateral agenda. This is not the first time they doing this. Whenever they have done it in the past, we have tackled it. This is nothing new.”
At the UNGA, India will raise several issues, ranging from climate change to peacekeeping. India has also been calling for a common definition of terror through the comprehensive convention on international terrorism.
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