Jammu and Kashmir was made Union Territory last year; the other was Ladakh (File)
Pakistan's attempt to internationalise the Kashmir issue through the United Nations has again "come to naught", after a UN Security Council meeting convened by China to discuss the matter ended without any outcome, a top Indian diplomat said on Thursday.
India's Permanent Representative to the UN TS Tirumurti said many other members of the Security Council underlined that Jammu and Kashmir was a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan and also stressed on the importance of the Simla Agreement.
"The attempt of Pakistan to internationalise this issue through the United Nations has again come to naught," Mr Tirumurti said.
"Another attempt by Pakistan fails! In today's meeting of UN Security Council (UNSC) which was closed, informal, not recorded, and without any outcome, almost all countries underlined that J&K was bilateral issue & did not deserve time and attention of Council," Mr Tirumurti tweeted.
China, Pakistan's "all-weather ally", called for a discussion on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the Security Council under "Any Other Business" on Wednesday, when India marked the first anniversary of ending special status to Jammu and Kashmir and division of the state into two Union Territories - Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Sources said the US took the lead, and many other council members also joined and made it clear that the Kashmir issue was not a matter for the UN body to discuss and is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan has been unsuccessfully trying to drum up international support against India for withdrawing Jammu and Kashmir's special status and bifurcating it into two Union Territories.
India has categorically told the international community that scrapping Article 370 was its internal matter. It also asked Pakistan to accept the reality and stop all anti-India propaganda.
In January, China, on behalf of Pakistan, had made a similar attempt to raise the Kashmir issue under "other matters" during closed consultations in the Security Council Consultations Room. Then too, China stood alone in the Pakistani corner to get the Security Council to focus on the Kashmir issue.
The January attempt had failed as other member countries said that Kashmir was a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Tirumurti said contrary to what Pakistan may claim, Islamabad has not been successful in trying to put Jammu and Kashmir on the UN agenda. "Frankly, the attempt by Pakistan to try and internationalise, what is a bilateral issue, is nothing new. A lie repeated a hundred times will not become truth," he said.
He said contrary to what Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mahmood Qureshi has asserted, there has been "no formal meeting of the Security Council on the India-Pakistan issue even once for the past 55 years, let alone three times."