Separatist Leader Says Kashmiris Would Donate Money to UN to Help it Run UNMOGIP Office in Delhi

SRINAGAR: The separatist leaders in Kashmir have voiced concern over External Affairs Ministry ordering United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to close its office in national capital with moderate Hurriyat Conference leader and cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq saying on Friday that Kashmiris would donate money if world body has issues with funds to run its office in Delhi.

“India was making pretexts to change the disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir on international level by sometimes terming the UN resolutions on Kashmir as ineffective or by questioning the very presence of UN office,” Mirwaiz said while addressing Friday congregation prayers at historic Jamia Masjid in downtown Srinagar.

He said by asking UNMOGIP office at New Delhi to shift its office, India was contradicting the ground and historical realities.

“If UN has issues with funds to run its office in Delhi, Kashmiris were benevolent enough to donate the money so as to compensate that problem,” the moderate separatist leader said and asked UN to play active role in solving the vexed Kashmir issue for once and all.

Indian External Affairs Ministry Syed Akbaruddin had on July 8 said they have asked the UNMOGIP to vacate the government bungalow on Purana Qila Road which they have been occupying free of charge. “This is in line with our effort to rationalize the UNMOGIP presence in India. As part of this exercise, we have also monetized some of the facilities that UNMOGIP had been availing free of cost till now”.

Reacting to the development, JKLF chairman Mohammad  Yasin Malik said it was India that went to UN for intervention in Jammu Kashmir and pledged to provide the people of Jammu Kashmir a chance to decide their future.

“Their leaders repeated their pledges in their own parliament and at Lal Chowk Srinagar,” he said.

Malik criticized Modi government for ordering UN to close its office in Delhi “It seems Indian leaders and state is getting deeper and deeper into the trench of arrogance and pomposity and are fast losing their wisdom and humanity.”

A spokesman of Hurriyat Conference led by hardeline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani said closing UN office in New Delhi can neither change the status of Kashmir issue nor can it be solved this way.

“Modi government can increase its number of forces in Jammu and Kashmir or it can detain the separatists in jails but it can neither change the realities regarding Kashmir dispute nor can it end its disputed nature which is recorded at international levels,” he said.

 “The order of GoI to UN to vacate its office premises in Delhi is equal to running away from the reality and it proves that the new government in New Delhi is immature and unbalanced and they are acting in haste,” he added.

The first team of UNMOGIP arrived in J&K in January 1949 to supervise the ceasefire between India and Pakistan; and to assist the Military Adviser to the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), established in 1948 by Security Council resolutions 39 (1948) PDF Document and 47 (1948) PDF Document.

UNMOGIP observers have been located at the ceasefire line between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir since 1949 and supervise the truce between the two neighbours.
Following the India-Pakistan hostilities at the end of 1971 and a subsequent ceasefire agreement of 17 December of that year, the tasks of UNMOGIP have been to observe, to the extent possible, developments pertaining to the strict observance of the ceasefire of 17 December 1971 and to report thereon to the Secretary-General.

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