Pakistan expects G20 members to reject India’s controversial proposal to seek legitimacy for illegal occupation
Pakistan has strongly rejected and opposed the Indian government’s reported plan to hold a G20 event in India-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK) next year.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an official statement that it expected G20 members to reject India’s “controversial proposal to seek international legitimacy for an illegal and tyrannical occupation continuing for over 7 decades.”
Indian media reports suggested that India has decided to host the meetings of the G20 in the disputed region next year and formed a five-member committee to coordinate the event.
Pakistan’s official statement said that “Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized disputed territory between Pakistan and India. 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.”
Contemplating the holding of any G20-related meeting/event in IIOJK, in utter disregard of the globally acknowledged “disputed” status of the territory, is a travesty that the international community cannot accept under any circumstances, the statement said.
The country’s Foreign Office statement also underlined that “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.”
The statement also said that since India’s illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019, Indian occupation forces have killed 639 innocent Kashmiris in extra-judicial murders.
“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.”