Daily Times

Turkey has welcomed the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) decision to address the issue of Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) in its session.

A statement by the Turkish Foreign Office read, “We welcome the consultations held at the UN Security Council on Jammu and Kashmir (August 16) under the title ‘India-Pakistan’, with a view to deescalating tension in the region and upholding diplomacy. We believe that the UN should play a more active role in resolving the issue within the framework of the resolutions it adopted earlier.”

“We reaffirm our hope that the issue will be resolved on the basis of international law and through dialogue between the relevant parties and we call upon the parties to exercise restraint and to refrain from unilateral steps which may increase tension,” the statement added.

On Friday, the UNSC met to discuss the critical situation in IHK for the first time in over five decades, urging parties to the dispute to refrain from taking any unilateral action. The UNSC met behind closed doors at the request of China and Pakistan to discuss the Indian government’s recent decision to revoke the special status of IHK.

The council had taken up the issue of the critical situation in IHK after more than 50 years since it was last discussed on the platform, effectively rejecting India’s stance that IHK was an internal issue and not an internationally recognised dispute.