G20 events in Kashmir “highly irresponsible”: Pakistan plays broken record

Islamabad [Pakistan], May 7 (ANI): Even after External Affairs Minister Jaishankar made it clear this week that Jammu and Kashmir is an inalienable part of India and holding G20 events there is completely natural, the Foreign Office (FO) of Pakistan played the same record on Sunday that EAM’s insinuations associating Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s remarks on India’s decision to hold G20 meetings in Jammu and Kashmir were “not only mischievous but highly irresponsible”, Dawn reported.

India assumed the year-long presidency of the G20 in December last year. It is set to host a leaders’ summit in early September.
Last month, India released a full calendar of events leading up to the summit, which included G20 and Youth 20 meetings in Srinagar and in Leh, in the region of Ladakh, in April and May.

Pakistan has “vehemently condemned” India’s move, saying such a move was “self-serving” on New Delhi’s part.

FM Bilawal, during his two-day visit to India for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) moot, also “condemned” India’s decision to hold G20 meetings in Kashmir.

Pakistan “condemned” the meetings while it has nothing to do anything with either G20 or Jammu and Kashmir.

Responding to questions regarding the matter in a media talk after the SCO meeting, FM Bilawal had said: “Obviously we condemn it and at the time we will give such a response that it will be remembered.”

Without any right or power to be saying so, Bilawal still said that holding the meetings in the disputed territory showed India’s “pettiness” and was “a show of arrogance to the world that to hell with international law, UNSC resolutions and bilateral agreements, India will hold its events in Kashmir”.

FM Bilawal also further made imaginary claims that India would soon find that “they will be unable to achieve 110 per cent attendance because other people will not compromise on their morals”.

Dawn reported that in a statement issued on Sunday, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that the foreign minister had on his visit to India emphasised the “critical importance of relevant UN Security Council resolutions” for a peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.

Interfering in India’s internal matter, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that the Foreign Ministry had already “articulated Pakistan’s position on the G20 Tourism Working Group meeting in POK in its press release of 11 April 2023”.

“Any insinuation, associating foreign minister’s remarks with a threat of violence, is not only mischievous but highly irresponsible. It is an attempt to shift focus from the Foreign Minister’s key message of conflict resolution through dialogue and in accordance with international law and UN security council resolutions,” the FO blabbered.

Jaishankar brushed aside Pakistan’s objections to India hosting the G20 tourism working group meeting in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir in May.

“I don’t think there is a G20 issue to debate with anybody, certainly not with a country which is nothing to do with G20. Jammu and Kashmir was, is, will always be a part of India. The G20 meetings are held in all the Indian states and Union Territories, so it is completely natural that it is held there,” Jaishankar said on Friday in a press conference after concluding the SCO Foreign Ministers Meet.