UNSC to meet on Kashmir as Imran Khan raises spectre of ‘millions of Muslims fleeing India’ for Pakistan
WASHINGTON: The United Nations Security Council is expected to convene for a closed door session lat..
WASHINGTON: The United Nations Security Council is expected to convene for a closed door session late on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Kashmir at Chinas behest even as its client state Pakistan, which pushed Beijing to call for the meeting, has raised fears that “millions of Muslims could flee India” due to continued curfew in the Kashmir Valley and unrest arising from Indias new citizenship law.
The China-engineered UNSC meet, which is not overtly supported by any other UNSC member, is taking place even as two top Indian cabinet ministers, external affairs minister S Jaishankar and defense minister Rajnath Singh, arrived in US for the annual 2+2 meeting to further strategic ties between Washington and New Delhi.
The 2+2 meeting itself is scheduled to take place at the Pentagon and the State Department on Wednesday while the US capital is consumed by the US House of Representatives impeachment vote in Congress.
China has been transparent in conveying that it is calling for an UNSC meeting on Kashmir at Islamabads behest, telling Council members that "In view of the seriousness of the situation and the risk of further escalation, China would like to echo the request of Pakistan, and request a briefing of the Council … on the situation of Jammu and Kashmir."
The move comes even though there is no sign of escalation or “genocide” that Pakistan anticipated, although some districts in the Kashmir Valley remains under a clampdown and continues to invite criticism from civil liberties and human rights proponents.
New Delhi insists that preventing loss of life and damage to property remains its priority over what it says is temporary loss of communication rights.
On its part, Pakistan upped the ante against India with its Prime Minister Imran Khan telling the Global Forum on Refugees in Geneva on Tuesday that “millions of Muslims could flee India” due to the curfew in Kashmir and Indias new citizenship law, creating “a refugee crisis that would dwarf other crises”
“We are worried there not only could be a refugee crisis, we are worried it could lead to a conflict between two nuclear-armed countries. Our country will not be able to accommodate more refugees,” Khan was quoted by news agencies as telling the Forum, while urging the world to “step in now.”
The spectacle of Islamabad leaning on China — which is in the dock for incarcerating more than 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims into concentration camps in Xinjiang in order to wipe out their language, religion and culture – to raise the Kashmir issue and its critiquing of the CAB, came even as Pakistan was itself eviscerated in a sepaRead More – Source
