India accuses Pakistan of stirring Kashmir trouble

September 20, 2000
Web posted at: 7:04 AM HKT (2304 GMT)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- India took indirect swipes at arch-rival Pakistan on Tuesday, accusing it of being behind the unrest in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Reflecting on a conflict which has kept the two nuclear powered rivals at loggerheads for decades, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said the situation underlined the need for an comprehensive convention to combat international terrorism.

"India has been the object of state-sponsored, cross-border terrorism, in its most inhuman forms, for almost a decade," Singh told the 55th session of the General Assembly.

He did not mention Pakistan by name, but India has frequently accused its neighbors of stirring trouble in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state.

Pakistan denies charges of arming and training Kashmir separatists in the Himalayan region of which India controls 45 percent.

Pakistan's foreign minister told the General Assembly on Monday that his country was willing to engage in discussions over Kashmir, but had been met with intransigence by the other side.

Kashmir has been the cause of two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since independence in 1947; in a show of brinkmanship the two countries carried out underground nuclear tests in succession in 1998.

Singh said India supported efforts toward global nuclear disarmament and on a global agreement on no first-use and non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states.

The two countries came close to another war in 1999 when hundreds of heavily armed intruders occupied a strategic stretch of mountain in the Himalayan state until an agreement allowed their return to Pakistan.

Indian and Pakistani troops frequently exchange fire along the 450-mile Line of Control or cease-fire line which divides the disputed region.

Singh also used the occasion to push his country's candidacy for a permanent seat on the 15-member U.N. Security Council, echoing most ministers over the past two weeks that the council needed to be enlarged.

"More than 150 states have, at the U.N. Millennium Summit, at the highest level, endorsed the need for a council reformed in its representation," Singh said.

"I would like to reaffirm India's willingness to take on the responsibilities of permanent membership," he said.

Council reform has been bogged down in the General Assembly for the past seven years. While many countries agree India should have a permanent seat, others, including Pakistan, are battling against its candidacy.

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