FO condemns India for planning to hold G-20 meet in IIOJK

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s apprehensions that India is trying to legitimise its illegal control of the disputed territory of Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) were realised when Delhi announced that it had planned to hold a G-20 meeting in the occupied territory.

On Tuesday, the Foreign Office vehemently condemned India’s irresponsible move.

“India’s irresponsible move is the latest in a series of self-serving measures to perpetuate its illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir in sheer disregard of the UN Security Council resolutions and violation of the principles of UN Charter and international law. Pakistan vehemently condemns these moves,” the Foreign Office said as New Delhi had made public its list of events in the territory.

The FO expressed “strong indignation” at the G-20 Tourism Working Group meeting in Srinagar on May 22–24, 2023.

“The scheduling of two other meetings of a consultative forum on youth affairs (Y-20) in Leh and Srinagar in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) is equally disconcerting,” it pointed out.

Presently, India is the chair of these 20 economies around the globe, and Pakistan says that with its latest decision to host the G-20 events in IIOJK, India is again exploiting its membership in an important international grouping for advancing its self-serving agenda.

All eyes will be on Pakistan’s close ally China, which recognises the Kashmir dispute and has continuously advocated that talks between the neighbours are the only way out. It is too early to say whether Beijing and Turkiye will support Pakistan’s stand and stay away from giving recognition to the disputed territory.

Only recently had Pakistan openly sided with China and Turkiye and stayed away from the US-sponsored Democracy Summit, to which China and Turkiye were not invited. Saudi Arabia and Turkiye are also part of the G-20 grouping.

For the time being, Pakistan has ridiculed India, saying that a country that has a grandiose vision of itself and its place in the world has once again demonstrated that it is unable to act as a responsible member of the international community.

“Such events cannot hide the reality that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognised dispute that has remained on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council for over seven decades,” said the Foreign Office.

Pakistan believes that such activities by India are intended to divert the international community’s attention from New Delhi’s brutal suppression of the people of IIOJK, including illegal attempts to change the demographic composition of the occupied territory.