Pakistan urges UN action on Kashmir as OIC reiterates call to revoke India’s 2019 move

Pakistan urges UN action on Kashmir as OIC reiterates call to revoke India’s 2019 move
Pakistan's Ambassador Munir Akram is addressing a ceremony to mark Kashmir Solidarity Day in New York, US, Fenruary 5, 2025. (@PakinNewYork/X)
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Updated 06 February 2025
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Pakistan urges UN action on Kashmir as OIC reiterates call to revoke India’s 2019 move

Pakistan urges UN action on Kashmir as OIC reiterates call to revoke India’s 2019 move
  • The developments came as Pakistan marked its annual Kashmir Solidarity Day on February 5
  • Pakistan’s letter to the UN officials mentioned alleged human rights violations by Indian forces

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan contacted top United Nations officials on Wednesday to raise concern over alleged rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir, as the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) reiterated its demand that New Delhi rescind its 2019 decision to revoke the disputed region’s special constitutional status.
Kashmir has remained a flashpoint between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947, with both nuclear-armed neighbors claiming it in full but controlling only parts of it. They have fought wars over the region and continue to engage in diplomatic efforts to assert their respective positions.
Pakistan accuses India of committing human rights violations in the region while denying Kashmiris the right to self-determination. India, in turn, accuses Pakistan of supporting militancy in the territory. Both countries reject each other’s allegations.
On Aug. 5, 2019, India unilaterally revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, stripping it of the limited autonomy it had previously enjoyed. The move led Pakistan to downgrade diplomatic ties with New Delhi.
“Ambassador Munir Akram, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, met with Ambassador Fu Cong, Permanent Representative of China, who is also President of the UN Security Council, to hand over the letter written by Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister of Pakistan,” the Pakistani mission at the UN said in a social media post.
It added that the letter “drew the Security Council’s attention to the grave human rights violations in IIOJK [Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir] at the hands of the Indian occupation forces and urged the Council members to take decisive steps, without any further delay, to secure the implementation of its own resolutions and end India’s egregious violations of the human rights of the Kashmiri people, in particular the right to self-determination.”
The letter was also copied to the President of the UN General Assembly and the UN Secretary-General.
Separately, the OIC, a bloc of Muslim-majority nations, also reiterated its position on the Kashmir dispute.
“The General Secretariat reiterates the OIC’s call to revoke all illegal measures initiated on August 5, 2019, which aimed to change the demographic structure of the disputed territory,” the organization said in a statement.
The developments came as Pakistan marked its annual Kashmir Solidarity Day on Feb. 5 to express support for Kashmiris in Indian-administered territory.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, calling on India to engage in “meaningful and result-oriented” dialogue over the dispute. He asserted that New Delhi’s unilateral measures had failed due to resistance from the local population.
Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, also traveled to the region, expressing optimism that Kashmir would eventually become part of Pakistan as he vowed to defend the country’s territorial integrity.


Pakistan finance chief urges faster payouts from climate loss and damage fund

Pakistan finance chief urges faster payouts from climate loss and damage fund
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Pakistan finance chief urges faster payouts from climate loss and damage fund

Pakistan finance chief urges faster payouts from climate loss and damage fund
  • Muhammad Aurangzeb calls climate change an ‘existential threat’ to countries like his own
  • He says Pakistan has always been a strong proponent of the fund and calls for its swift use

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Friday urged the international community to ensure faster and simpler disbursements from a new global fund set up to help vulnerable countries respond to climate-related losses.

The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), established at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in 2022 before being officially operationalized by 198 countries, aims to help developing and least developed countries (LDCs) cope with both economic and non-economic impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather events and slow-onset crises like sea-level rise and droughts.

Aurangzeb made the remarks while addressing a high-level dialogue over the issue, held on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings in Washington.

“Emphasizing that simplicity and agility should be the guiding principles, the finance minister urged the need for speedy disbursements under the fund, unlike the experience of LDCs and other vulnerable nations with existing climate finance mechanisms,” Pakistan’s finance ministry said in a statement circulated after the dialogue.

Aurangzeb also stressed the importance of “the integrity of the whole process with adequate checks and balances,” according to the statement.

He said Pakistan had been among the strongest proponents of the fund, warning that climate change represents an “existential threat” to countries like his own.

Pakistan has experienced increasingly erratic weather patterns in recent years, including heatwaves, droughts, cyclones and glacial melting.

In 2022, record monsoon rains triggered floods that killed over 1,700 people, affecting 30 million more and causing economic losses exceeding $30 billion.


Trump says India, Pakistan will resolve tensions ‘one way or another’

Trump says India, Pakistan will resolve tensions ‘one way or another’
Updated 25 April 2025
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Trump says India, Pakistan will resolve tensions ‘one way or another’

Trump says India, Pakistan will resolve tensions ‘one way or another’
  • The US president says there have always been tensions between the two countries
  • Trump declines to say if he would get in touch with Indian and Pakistani leaders

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE: India and Pakistan will figure out relations between themselves, US President Donald Trump said on Friday as tensions soared between the two neighboring countries after an attack in India’s Kashmir region that was the worst in nearly two decades.
Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One, cited historical conflict in the disputed border region and said he knew both countries’ leaders, but did not answer when asked whether he would contact them.
“They’ll get it figured out one way or the other,” he said as he traveled aboard his plane. “There’s great tension between Pakistan and India, but there always has been.”
On Tuesday, 26 men were killed at a tourist site in Kashmir, shot dead in a meadow. India has said there were Pakistani elements to the attack, a claim Islamabad denies.
Both India and Pakistan have claimed the region of Kashmir, and have fought two wars over the area.
Relations between the two South Asian nations have deteriorated in the days following the attack, with India setting aside a critical water sharing pact and Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines. Their trade is also at risk.
On Friday, Indian stock markets fell on fears of fresh tensions as Indian authorities searched for militants in the region, before markets recovered some losses.


Pakistan confirms new polio case in northwest, bringing 2025 total to eight

Pakistan confirms new polio case in northwest, bringing 2025 total to eight
Updated 25 April 2025
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Pakistan confirms new polio case in northwest, bringing 2025 total to eight

Pakistan confirms new polio case in northwest, bringing 2025 total to eight
  • The country has launched a week-long anti-polio drive to immunize over 45 million children
  • Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two polio-endemic countries throughout the world

KARACHI: Pakistan’s polio eradication program confirmed a new case of the disease in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday, bringing the total count to eight as the nationwide drive to inoculate millions of children continues.
Pakistan launched a campaign earlier this week to vaccinate over 45 million children against polio. The country reported 74 cases in 2024 and has planned three major vaccination drives in the first half of this year.
The current campaign is the second of 2025, with a third set to begin from May 26 to June 1.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health Islamabad has confirmed a polio case from District Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the lab said in a statement, adding this was the third case from the province this year.
It also urged parents to ensure that their children receive repeated doses of the polio vaccine to protect them from the disease.
On Wednesday, two security officials assigned to protect a polio vaccination team were killed in a gun attack in the Teri area of Mastung, in the southwestern Balochistan province.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the last polio-endemic countries in the world. In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually, but by 2018, the number had dropped to eight. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
Pakistan’s polio eradication program, launched in 1994, has faced persistent challenges, including vaccine misinformation and resistance from some religious hard-liners who claim immunization is a foreign conspiracy to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western espionage.
Militant groups have also repeatedly targeted and killed polio vaccination workers. Last week, gunmen attacked a vehicle and abducted two polio workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
On April 21, a militant was killed when a police team escorting a polio team on the outskirts of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan district, responded to a gun attack.


Security forces kill six militants in Pakistan’s northwest

Security forces kill six militants in Pakistan’s northwest
Updated 25 April 2025
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Security forces kill six militants in Pakistan’s northwest

Security forces kill six militants in Pakistan’s northwest
  • Four other militants were injured in the intelligence-based operation carried out in Bannu district
  • Pakistan PM praises the security forces following the raid, acknowledging their professionalism

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s security forces killed six militants during an intelligence-based operation in the northwestern district of Bannu, the military said on Friday, amid a spike in attacks in its western provinces bordering Afghanistan.
Authorities blame the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of various militant factions, for much of the violence directed against the civilians and security forces in the area.
Pakistani officials refer to TTP fighters as “khwarij,” a term rooted in early Islamic history used for an extremist sect that declared other Muslims apostates.
“On night 23/24 April 2025, Security Forces conducted an intelligence based operation in Bannu District on reported presence of Khwarij,” the military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations, said in a statement.
“During the conduct of operation, own troops effectively engaged the khwarij location and after an intense fire exchange, six khwarij were sent to hell, while four khwarij got injured,” it added.
The statement informed a “sanitization operation” was underway to eliminate any remaining militants, adding that security forces were determined to eradicate militancy from the country.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif praised the security forces following the raid, acknowledging their professionalism and resolve.
“The nefarious designs of terrorists, who are enemies of humanity, will continue to be crushed,” he said in a separate statement circulated by his office, vowing that Pakistan’s fight against militancy would persist until it was completely eradicated.


Pakistan’s deputy PM briefs Saudi FM on response to India’s actions after Kashmir attack

Pakistan’s deputy PM briefs Saudi FM on response to India’s actions after Kashmir attack
Updated 25 April 2025
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Pakistan’s deputy PM briefs Saudi FM on response to India’s actions after Kashmir attack

Pakistan’s deputy PM briefs Saudi FM on response to India’s actions after Kashmir attack
  • Ishaq Dar criticizes India’s ‘baseless’ accusations against Pakistan, cautions against escalatory moves
  • Pakistan denies involvement in a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in which 26 were killed

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, who also serves as foreign minister, briefed his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, on Islamabad’s response to India’s retaliatory moves after a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, saying his country would respond firmly to any external aggression.
The two leaders spoke over the phone amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors after gunmen killed 26 civilians in the tourist town of Pahalgam earlier this week.
India accused Pakistan of involvement in the attack — a charge Islamabad denied — before announcing a series of retaliatory steps, including suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, expelling Pakistani diplomats and shutting down the Attari-Wagah border crossing.
Pakistan held a high-level national security meeting in response, criticizing Indian actions and promising a forceful response if New Delhi diverted river waters or resorted to any military action.
“DPM/FM [Dar] briefed Prince Faisal on decisions taken by Pakistan’s National Security Committee in the wake of unilateral measures announced by India,” the foreign office of Pakistan said in a statement after the phone call. “He rejected India’s baseless allegations and cautioned against further escalatory moves.”
“DPM/FM reaffirmed Pakistan’s resolve to respond firmly to any aggression,” the statement added.
Both ministers also expressed satisfaction with the state of bilateral relations and agreed to maintain consultations on evolving regional dynamics.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have long-standing ties, particularly in defense and diplomacy, and often coordinate positions at multilateral forums.
As part of its wider diplomatic outreach, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch briefed ambassadors and senior diplomats in Islamabad earlier this week, highlighting the National Security Committee’s stance and reiterating Pakistan’s rejection of militancy in all its forms.
Pakistan also hosted the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Special Envoy for Jammu and Kashmir, Yousef Al Dobeay, from April 19 to 22.
Officials briefed him on the situation in the disputed region of Kashmir while maintaining that the people of Kashmir looked to the Muslim world and the OIC for support in their struggle for self-determination.