IoK can never be integral part of India: Maleeha Lodhi

NEW YORK: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Maleeha Lodhi on Friday said that the decolonization agenda of the United Nations would remain incomplete without resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

Addressing the General Assembly's Special Political and Decolonization Committee, she said that for over six decades UN Security Council has failed to implement resolutions promising a plebiscite to allow the Kashmiri people to determine their destiny.

“This is the most persistent failure of the United Nations,” she said.

Highlighting the Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir, Ambassador Lodhi said that generation after generation of Kashmiris has seen only broken promises and brutal oppression.

“Today the Kashmiri people have risen again in unison against occupation. The ongoing indigenous uprising is a consequence of the denial of their right to self-determination. This has been met once more with characteristic Indian brutality,” she said.

The Pakistani envoy told the audience that during the past two and a half months over a hundred innocent Kashmiris have been killed and thousands injured by Indian bullets and pellets.

Ambassador Lodhi said that Jammu and Kashmir never was and can never 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. The right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination has been acknowledged and promised to them by the Security Council,” she said.