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Kashmir off the list of ‘festering disputes’ in UN report |
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For the first time in 13 years, Kashmir has been taken if the list of ‘festering disputes’ in the UN Secretary General’s Annual Report. Observers consider this as a diplomatic windfall for New Delhi.
Simultaneously, there are rumblings in the Security Council for ending the mandate of the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which has monitored the ceasefire between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir since 1949.
The General Assembly’s Committee on Programme and Coordination (CPC) decided not to mention UNMOGIP’s “deployment in field and headquarters” for the first time. Pakistan was the only country to object to the change, but was forced to give in to near unanimity.
India had vehemently objected in private meetings with then secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the UN secretariat in 1993 when Kashmir was mentioned as a dispute in the annual report. Since then, the references have often got worse, with Kashmir being bracketed with such crisis spots as Palestine.
Sources at the UN said that in the last two years, New Delhi had gone all out to ensure that there was no reference to the issue. Those efforts have been crowned with success this year. Observers say, that the success is a reflection of India’s emerging profile in the UN and the world and a reflection of the international community’s willingness to see the country as much more than a source of perennial trouble.
The omission of Kashmir in the report is expected to go some way in New Delhi’s bid for a permanent seat in the Security Council.
The omission does not, however, mean that Kashmir is off the UN agenda. Technically, the dispute is still on the table of the Security Council, whose resolutions are in force.
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