India on Thursday delivered an unusually blunt message to China for its attempt to raise the Kashmir issue at the UN Security Council, asking it to seriously reflect on the global consensus and refrain from taking such action in the future.
India also slammed Pakistan for trying to internationalise the Kashmir issue with the help of China, saying Islamabad's 'desperate' measures to 'peddle' baseless allegations and presenting an alarming scenario about the Valley lacked credibility.
"Pakistan can avoid this global embarrassment time and again by putting their energy in something constructive," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said at a media briefing.
China, an 'all-weather ally' of Pakistan, on Wednesday made a fresh bid to raise the Kashmir issue at an informal closed-door meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York.
Noting that the meeting concluded without any outcome, Kumar said an overwhelming majority of the UNSC members were of the view that the top decision making body was not the right forum to discuss the Kashmir issue.
"China should seriously reflect on this global consensus, draw proper lessons and refrain from taking such action in future," Kumar said, replying to a question on why India has not reacted strongly to Beijing raising the Kashmir issue at the UNSC.
"I suggest that this question should be posed to the Chinese side as well," he said.
Kumar said the views by overwhelming majority at the UNSC reflected the global consensus that if there was any issue between India and Pakistan, then it should be discussed bilaterally.
"An effort was made by Pakistan through a member of the UNSC to once again misuse the platform of UNSC for discussing a bilateral matter," he said.
"The overwhelming majority of the UNSC members were of the view that UNSC was not the right forum for such issues and this should be discussed bilaterally between India and Pakistan. The informal closed-door meeting, therefore, concluded without any outcome," he said.
The current move by China was the third such attempt since August when the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution was scrapped by the government, and the state was bifurcated into two union territories.
"We sincerely hope that the message has gone across loud and clear to Pakistan that if, at all, there is any matter between India and Pakistan that needs to be discussed, it should be discussed bilaterally," Kumar added.
Asked how many member countries out of 15 opposed the move, the MEA spokesperson said an overwhelming view was that the UNSC should not to be misused by Pakistan through a member. However, he did not give specific number of countries.
In August, China pushed for a UNSC meeting on Kashmir after the government scrapped J-K's special status. However, the meeting did not yield desired results for China as the member-states maintained that India's move was an internal issue.
Last month, France, the US, the UK and Russia foiled an attempt by China to discuss Kashmir at a closed-door meeting of the UNSC.
China has been critical of India's reorganisation of J-K, and has particularly criticised New Delhi for making Ladakh a union territory. China lays claim over several parts of Ladakh.
After the meeting, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin told PTI that 'we once again saw an effort made by one member state of the UN, fail in plain view of all others. We are happy that neither alarmist scenario painted by the representatives of Pakistan nor any of the baseless allegations made repeatedly by representatives of Pakistan in the UN fora were found to be credible today'.
On his part, Chinese envoy Zhang Jun in New York said,"I am sure the meeting will help both the parties to understand the risk of further escalation and will encourage them to approach each other and have a dialogue and seek solutions through dialogue. I think that will be helpful."
