JOIN US‘Baseless & unwarranted’: India slams UN official for objecting to G20 meet in J&K
After the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Fernand de Varennes criticised New Delhi for its plan to hold a G20 meeting in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), India on Tuesday accused him of grossly violating his mandate, acting irresponsibly and politicising the issue.
“We @IndiaUNGeneva strongly reject the statement issued by SR on minority issues @fernanddev & (and) the baseless & unwarranted allegations in it. As G20 President, it’s India’s prerogative to host its meetings in any part of the country,” the Permanent Mission of India to the UN offices in Geneva tweeted.
We @IndiaUNGeneva strongly reject the statement issued by SR on minority issues @fernanddev & the baseless & unwarranted allegations in it. As G20 President, it’s India’s prerogative to host its meetings in any part of the country. (1/2)@UNHumanRights @volker_turk @MEAIndia
— India at UN, Geneva (@IndiaUNGeneva) May 16, 2023
“(The) G20 should, on the contrary, uphold ‘International human rights obligations & (and) the #UN Declaration of Human Rights should be upheld…and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir should be decried and condemned, not pushed under the rug and ignored with the holding of this meeting,” he added in another post on Twitter.
Varennes alleged that India was “seeking to normalise” what some had described “as a military occupation” over J&K by instrumentalising a G20 meeting and portraying an international “seal of approval”.
Varennes stated in a tweet that holding a G20 meeting in Jammu and Kashmir while massive human rights violations were ongoing would be tantamount to “lending support to attempts by India to normalise the brutal and repressive denial of democratic & (and) other rights of (the) Kashmiri Muslims and minorities”.
Islamabad, too has been protesting New Delhi’s plan to hold the G20 event in J&K, which, according to it, remains an area of dispute between Pakistan and India.
New Delhi dismissed protests from Islamabad, reiterating that the entire J&K, including the area illegally occupied by Pakistan, had been, was and would remain an integral part of India.
New Delhi has planned to hold a meeting of the G20 Working Group on Tourism in Srinagar from May 22 and 24, just as it has been organising similar events in other cities across the country during the run-up to the bloc’s 18th summit, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host in the national capital on September 9 and 10 next.