NEW DELHI: In the aftermath of the debacle at the UN Geneva Assembly, where it had to drop its proposal to move a resolution on Kashmir in the First Committee, Pakistani officials in New York have claimed) that action in the Security Council was an option Still open to Islamabad.

It is however, still a question whether the UN Security Council would actually agree to discuss Kashmir issue. According to indications, the Security Council members are not interested in taking up the Kashmir issue as an agenda item. Pakistan will have to make a major effort to convince other Council members about its case, at a time when most of them have advocated the bilateral dialogue as the best means to resolve the issue.

‘The Pakistani threat of raising the Kashmir issue in the Security Council still retains some significance because of its enhanced importance as a member of the UN Security Council till the end of December this year, In September last, just before the UN General Assembly session began, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali had written to the Security Council Urging it to alleviate the sufferings of the people of Kashmir. He made the specific suggestion in the context of what it called the threat to peace and ‘security in the area, that the strength of the United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) be increased from 45 to 200/and that its mandate be extended beyond monitoring the Line of Control (LOC). After the initial communication, Pakistan has made no move to Press the Kashmir issue as an agenda item in the Security Council, Minister of State for External Affairs Salman Khursheed said recently: “There is no question of accepting a debate, because we think it is not appropriate. We have told them that the UNMOGIP no longer had any role to perform and its mandate had expired.”

India has referred to its note to the UN Secretariat in 1972 which had stated that the mandate of the UNMOGIP related specifically to the supervision of the ceasefire line established under the Karachi Agreement of July 1949 and did not extend to the (LOC) which came into existence in December 1971.

Article extracted from this publication >>  November 18, 1994