Pakistan should discuss concerns over LoC violations with India: India's envoy to the UN Asoke Mukerji

UNITED NATIONS: India's top diplomat at the UN has said Pakistan should discuss its "concerns" over LoC ceasefire violations in Jammu and Kashmir bilaterally, days after Pakistan wrote to the UN Security Council on the issue.

"If they have addressed a letter to the Security Council on a subject which is very much bilateral, covered by the Simla Agreement which they have signed, then I'm very surprised that they have done so," India's envoy to the UN Asoke Mukerji told PTI when asked about the letter by Pakistan to the UNSC on the ceasefire violations at the LoC in Kashmir.

He pointed out that the letter is addressed to the UN Security Council and India is not a member of the top body.

"If at all they have some concerns, they should talk to us bilaterally. (Kashmir) has always been a bilateral issue," he said.

Pakistan raked up the issue of the ceasefire violations in the letter to the UN Security Council last Friday.

In the letter to President of the Council for the month Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi requested the Council to "take notice of provocative Indian actions" along the Line of Control in Kashmir and the Working Boundary.

The letter also asked the UNSC President "to urge India to exercise restraint" and to "abide by" the 2003 Ceasefire Arrangement.

Pakistan has been raising the issue at the UN with top officials in the Departments of Political Affairs and Peacekeeping Operations over the past several weeks.