United Nations: A United Nations spokesman said the world body’s position on Jammu and Kashmir remains “unchanged” and said a final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute should be achieved through peaceful means in accordance with the United Nations Charter. “The position of the United Nations in this area is governed by the Charter of the United Nations and relevant Security Council resolutions,” he told reporters at a regular midday briefing on Wednesday.
“The Secretary General,” Farhan Haq added, “also recalls the 1972 India-Pakistan Agreement on Bilateral Relations, also known as the Simla Agreement.”
Pakistan has marked the fifth anniversary of the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government stripped Indian-occupied Kashmir of its special status, which gave it a separate constitution and inherited the protection of land and jobs under Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution. .
Article 370 also bars Indians from outside Jammu and Kashmir from permanent settlement, buying land, holding local government jobs and providing educational scholarships.
India’s move was accompanied by a telecommunications blackout in the Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir, restrictions on public movement and the deployment of thousands of troops.
In addition to intensifying repression, India has granted domicile certificates to thousands of Indians to settle in occupied Kashmir in an attempt to change the demographic character of the state.
The certificate, a kind of citizenship, entitles a person to residence and government functions in the region, which until last year was reserved for Kashmiris only.
