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United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has urged India and Pakistan to exercise “maximum restraint” and refrain from taking steps that could affect the status of Jammu and Kashmir, as he highlighted the Shimla Agreement which rejects any third-party mediation on the issue.
The Secretary-General’s remarks came after India revoked Article 370 to withdraw the special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Pakistan termed the Indian action as “unilateral and illegal”, and said it will take the matter to the UN Security Council.
“The Secretary-General has been following the situation in Jammu and Kashmir with concern and makes an appeal for maximum restraint,” Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York.
Dujarric specifically said that the Secretary-General “also recalls the 1972 Agreement on bilateral relations between India and Pakistan, also known as the Shimla Agreement, which states that the final status of Jammu and Kashmir is to be settled by peaceful means” in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
The Secretary General did not offer his good offices nor did he make any offer to mediate between India and Pakistan on Kashmir.
Instead, he referred to the Shimla Agreement, which is a bilateral agreement between India and Pakistan and rejects any third-party mediation in the issue.
Guterres also called “on all parties to refrain from taking steps” that could affect the status of Jammu and Kashmir.
He said the position of the United Nations on the region was governed by the Charter of the United Nations and is applicable to Security Council resolutions.
