India slams Pakistan for repeatedly raising Kashmir issue

UNITED NATION: India today slammed Pakistan at the UN for repeatedly raising the Kashmir issue on platforms where it has not been part of the agenda, saying the neighbouring country has ventured to plough a "lonely furrow contrary to the onward march of history".

India's response came after Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi, said that the decolonisation agenda of the UN will "remain incomplete" without resolution of the "long festering dispute" of Jammu and Kashmir.

The issues was raised by Pakistan during a debate on decolonisation in the fourth committee of the UN General Assembly.

Srinivas Prasad, minister at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN, said India "rejects the efforts of the delegation of Pakistan to bring issues which have never been on the agenda of this Committee ever in its history."

He said India considered it a diversion from the agenda and as a distraction not worthy of a response.

"Even as all those who have taken the floor have focused on issues of Non Self-Governing Territories, a solitary member State, as usual, has ventured to plough a lonely furrow contrary to the onward march of history," said the Indian diplomat.

However, exercising its right to reply, Pakistan said that Kashmir remained a "dispute under any definition", and that there was an "explicit obligation" for the UN and the parties to work to resolve it.

Earlier, Lodhi continued with her anti-India tirade at the UN.

"Contrary to Indian claims, Jammu and Kashmir never was and never can be an integral part of India. It is disputed territory, the final status of which has yet to be determined in accordance with several resolutions of the UN Security Council," she said.