India slams Pakistan at CICA Summit, says 'grave and persistent rights violations in PoK'
Meenakshi Lekhi, who represented India at the summit and spoke after Sharif, said that Pakistan had again misused the CICA platform to "propagate false and malicious propaganda" against India and to distract from the focus of discussions.
FollowMinister of state for external affairs Meenakshi Lekhi on Thursday squared off on the issue between India and Pakistan on the issues of Kashmir and meaningful engagement at a regional summit in Kazakhstan.
Addressing the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures (CICA) Summit in Astana, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif accused India of committing atrocities in Jammu and Kashmir and said the onus for a result-oriented engagement was on New Delhi.
Meenakshi Lekhi, who represented India at the summit and spoke after Sharif, said that Pakistan had again misused the CICA platform to "propagate false and malicious propaganda" against India and to distract from the focus of discussions.
Addressing the Summit, Lekhi said, "The union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have been and will remain an integral part of India. Pakistan has no locus standi to comment on India’s internal affairs."
Lekhi also said that Sharif's remarks amounted to "gross interference in India's internal affairs, sovereignty and territorial integrity" and were inconsistent with CICA's principles guiding relations between member states.
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She called on Pakistan to stop the "grave and persistent human rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Jammu (PoK), Kashmir and Ladakh" and to refrain from any further material changes in the status of the region.
"India desires normal relations with all its neighbours, including Pakistan, which needs to create the grounds for any engagement." she said.
"Pakistan is thereby advised to walk the talk by creating a conducive atmosphere, including by taking credible, verifiable and irreversible actions to not allow any territory under its control to be used for cross-border terrorism against India in any manner," she added.
Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister accused India of denying the Kashmiri people their right to self-determination and not acting on UN resolutions.
"Pakistan desires peaceful relations with all its neighbours, including India. However, until India brings its atrocities in occupied Kashmir to a grinding halt, just and lasting peace will remain elusive," he said.
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Since the 2008 Mumbai attack, India and Pakistan have not had any sustained and substantive engagement that was carried out by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). India's decision to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 further sent ties into a tailspin.
