Pakistan ‘strongly condemns’ India’s move to host G20 summit in Kashmir

Ties between the two rival neighbours have been virtually in the cold storage since India revoked the special status for Jammu and Kashmir in 2019

Pakistan has “strongly” objected to India’s decision to hold a G20 meeting in Kashmir, the Himalayan region at the heart of 70 years of animosity between the two nuclear armed rivals.

In a statement on Tuesday, Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs said it “expresses its strong indignation over India’s decision to hold the G-20 Tourism Working Group meeting in Srinagar on 22-24 May 2023”.

The meeting comes as India has taken up its role as chair of the Group of 20 this year.

“India’s irresponsible move is the latest in a series of self-serving measures to perpetuate its illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir in sheer disregard of the UN Security Council resolutions and in violation of the principles of the UN Charter and the international law. Pakistan vehemently condemns these moves,” Pakistan’s foreign affairs ministry statement said.

“With its decision to host G-20 events in IIOJK (Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir), India is again exploiting its membership of an important international grouping for advancing its self-serving agenda,” the statement added.

“For a country that has a grandiose vision about itself and its place in the world, India has repeatedly demonstrated that it is unable to act as a responsible member of the international community.”

Ties between India and Pakistan have virtually been in the cold storage, especially after India revoked the special status for the Jammu and Kashmir region in 2019, outraging Pakistan, which also lays claim to the Himalayan territory.

The G20 meeting will be the first major international event to be held in Jammu and Kashmir since it became a federal territory with the abrogation of Article 370.

Pakistan said that India’s move to hold the G20 meeting in Srinagar “cannot hide the reality of Jammu and Kashmir being an internationally recognized dispute that has remained on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council for over seven decades”.

“Nor could such activities divert international community’s attention from India’s brutal suppression of the people of IIOJK including illegal attempts to change the demographic composition of the occupied territory,” the statement added.

While both the countries routinely accuse each other of targeting the other, tensions have been especially high since a flashpoint of violence in February 2019, which culminated in Pakistan shooting down an Indian fighter jet and capturing its pilot.