Daily Times

Pakistan has warned that India’s continued “repression” of the UN-promised Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination, in defiance of Security Council resolutions, posed a grave threat to regional and international peace and security. “Strategic stability is also threatened by this state (India) as it continues to receive abundant supply of conventional and non-conventional weaponry, and now new sensitive technologies and platforms,” Ambassador Khalil Hashmi told the UN General Assembly’s First Committee, which deals with disarmament and international security matters on Friday.

“These generous supplies and its designation as a net security provider have emboldened this State to impose its hegemony and the well-advertised ambition to emerge as a dominant power in South Asia, the Indian Ocean and beyond,” said Ambassador Hashmi, who is Pakistan’s permanent representative to UN offices in Geneva.

The Pakistani envoy, who was speaking in a general debate, reaffirmed the need for equitable and balanced disarmament measures that ensure each State’s right to security, with no individual State or group of States gaining advantages over others.

Noting an unprecedented increase in military expenditures and rising great power rivalries, he characterized the global security landscape as “grim.”

Without naming India, Ambassador Hashmi said “this state” continued to pursue belligerent policies, aggressive war-fighting doctrines, and heightened readiness postures and deployments, fraught with demonstrated risks of accidental launches.

Pakistan, he said, cannot remain oblivious to this evolving security dynamics “in our immediate neighbourhood”, and will maintain its capability of minimum credible deterrence against all forms of aggression.

Despite continuing threats, Pakistan remained committed to the goal of a peaceful and stable South Asia.

Over the past quarter century,he said, Pakistan proposed a number of initiatives to promote peace and security and prevent the emergence of nuclear weapons in South Asia. Following the nuclear tests in South Asia, Pakistan proposed the establishment of a Strategic Restraint Regime (SRR) in the region, premised on three interlocking and mutually reinforcing elements of conflict resolution, nuclear and missile restraint and conventional arms balance.

“The proposal remains on the table,” Ambassador Hashmi said, pointed out that Pakistan’s security policy continued to be defined by restraint, responsibility and avoidance of a mutually debilitating arms race in the region.

He said that peace and stability in South Asia can be built: through the resumption of negotiations to resolve the outstanding India-Pakistan disputes, especially the resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with UNSC resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people; and, by the maintenance of a balance of conventional and strategic military capabilities and deployments, including reciprocal measures for nuclear, missile and military restraints between the two countries. On its part, Ambassador Hashmi said, Pakistan continued to support negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear weapons convention, as well as legally binding negative security assurances, and a treaty prohibiting the weaponization of outer space. The proposed treaty banning only the production of fissile materials remains flawed and seeks to perpetuate present asymmetries by excluding existing stocks that can produce thousands of new nuclear weapons, he said, adding that Pakistan had ‘concrete’ proposal that promoted the twin objectives of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation equitably.

Ambassador Hashmi’s sharp reference to Jammu and Kashmir evoked a response from Indian envoy Anupam Ray who harped on the same old tune that these territories, as well as Ladakh, are and will remain part of India.

Exercising his right of reply, Pakistani delegate Rizwan Siddique rejected the Indian claim that Jammu-Kashmir was part of India, adding that under UN resolutions, it was a territory in dispute yet to be resolved based on the wishes of Kashmir people through a free, fair plebiscite.

Siddique, who is director of Disarmament and Arms Control in the Foreign Ministry , said that Jammu-Kashmir was among the oldest Security Council agenda items.

For seven decades, he said, India had violated the relevant UNSC resolutions and denied the right to self-determination. India’s illegal actions in August 2019 further jeopardized regional security, and more recently, its massive acquisition of weapons was provoking an arms race in South Asia, the Pakistani delegate added.