Pakistan ‘completely rejects’ Indian bid to hold G20 meeting in occupied Kashmir

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Saturday completely rejected India’s attempt to hold the G-20 summit in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, reiterating that the region is under New Delhi’s forcible and illegal occupation.

NDTV reported that India is planning to host the 2023 meetings of the G-20 and its Ministry of External Affairs has already issued directives to the authorities in the occupied territory to ensure necessary arrangements.

In a statement, the Foreign Office reminded India that it is well-known that IoJK is an internationally recognised “disputed” territory between Islamabad and New Delhi.

“The territory has been under forcible and illegal occupation of India since 1947 and this dispute has remained on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council for over seven decades,” the statement read.

The Foreign Office said India is responsible for widespread atrocities and egregious human rights violations in IOJK. Since India’s illegal and unilateral actions on August 5, 2019, Indian occupation forces have killed 639 innocent Kashmiris in extra-judicial murders, it noted.

“Numerous reports of the UN, including the two commissioned by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2018 and 2019, have re-confirmed ongoing Indian atrocities against the Kashmiri people.”

The Foreign Office stressed that most ominously, India has been seeking to change the demographic structure of the occupied territory in flagrant violation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions, international law, and the 4th Geneva Convention.

Contemplating the holding of any G20-related event in IoJK — in utter disregard of the globally acknowledged “disputed” status of the territory — is a travesty that the international community cannot accept under any circumstances, it said.

“It is expected that in case of any such controversial proposal from India, which would be designed to seek international legitimacy for an illegal and tyrannical occupation continuing for over seven decades, the G20 members will be fully cognizant of the imperatives of law and justice and would reject it out-right.”

The Foreign Office strongly urged the international community to call upon India to end its gross and systematic violations of human rights in IOJK, revoke its illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019, and free all political prisoners including the true Kashmiri leaders.

“The only way to lasting peace in South Asia is by granting the people of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir their inalienable right to self-determination as pledged to them in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions,” the Foreign Office added.