‘Pakistani envoys can’t make world agree to their viewpoint’

India terms Kashmir its integral part

NEW DELHI: Terming Kashmir as its integral part, India on Thursday dismissed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s letter to the United Nations, saying the move will not change the reality that a part of Jammu and Kashmir is under Islamabad’s “illegal and forcible” occupation.

“They can write as many letters as they want but this will not change the reality on the ground,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

Swarup also criticised Pakistan’s decision to send 22 parliamentarians as special envoys to highlight the Kashmir issue on different international forums and said these envoys cannot make the world agree to their viewpoint, the Indian media reported.

“As far as the internal situation in J&K is concerned, we believe Pakistan has no locus standi in commenting on that and we are perfectly capable of dealing with it,” Swarup said.He was replying to a question on Nawaz Sharif writing to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for the second time in a month, seeking his intervention for sending a fact-finding mission to probe the human rights violations in the valley.

On Nawaz Sharif’s decision to send envoys to various countries to highlight the Kashmir issue, he said thestopping support to cross-border terrorism, ending incitement to violence in Jammu and Kashmir and putting an end to interference in India's “internal affairs”.

"Sending out 22 envoys is not going to make their baseless and untenable claims legitimate. Instead of sending 22 envoys with the wrong message to the wrong countries, it would have been better to send one envoy with the right message to the right country," he said.

Asked about China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Swarup alleged that it passes through India's sovereign territory under illegal occupation of Pakistan and that "India would obviously have concerns about any project there happening with third party collaboration."

On the US Secretary of State John Kerry's comment that Pakistan was also a victim of terror, the spokesperson said India did not say it was not.

"But we are asking who created that terror. That is the real issue. The thing that needs to be understood how did the victimisation start. For us the real issue is that there should not be any differentiation between good terrorist and bad terrorist and Kerry had clearly said that," Swarup said.