India asks Pakistan to end illegal occupation of Kashmir

NEW YORK - With Pakistan trying to rake up the Kashmir issue at the United Nations General Assembly, India has asserted that Islamabad is in illegal possession of certain parts of the state and asked it to first vacate it before advising New Delhi.

“As far as Pakistan is concerned, they are in illegal occupation of certain parts of Jammu and Kashmir,” Krishna told NDTV in an interview.

“I think that it is desirable that they vacate that first and then start advising India about how to go about doing things in Kashmir,” he said.

Alluding to the recent visit of an all-party delegation to Kashmir, Krishna underlined that the Indian government was trying to address genuine grievances of people by putting in place institutional and individual mechanisms. “The government of India is fully conscious about its responsibilities,” he said.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Tuesday sought the intervention of the United States and the international community to help resolve the Kashmir issue.

“The international community must recognize that the people of Kashmir, in an entirely indigenous upsurge, are demanding their right to self-determination,” Qureshi said in an address at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York think tank.

“The occupation cannot continue,” he had said.

India had also strongly objected to the statements on Kashmir made by the Pakistan foreign office last week and in the two houses of Pakistani parliament - the National Assembly and the Senate -Tuesday, alleging human rights violations there and calling for international intervention.

“They have no locus standi on what is purely an internal affair of India,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said here Tuesday. “Pakistan should tackle the issues of constitutional safeguards, democracy, extremism, terrorism and human rights violations in the part of Jammu & Kashmir under its illegal occupation,” he added.