India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi on Thursday (July 29) strongly rejected references made to Jammu and Kashmir in a recent joint press statement by Pakistan and China and made it very clear that the union territory as well as Ladakh have been and will remain its integral and inalienable part.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi also raised strong objections to the reference made to the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in the statement, saying that the project is in Indian territory that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan.
“As in the past, India categorically rejects any reference to Jammu and Kashmir. The union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the union territory of Ladakh has been and will remain an integral and inalienable part of India,” Bagchi said at a media briefing.
“We resolutely oppose any attempts by other countries to change the status quo in areas illegally occupied by Pakistan as also to Pakistan bringing up any material change in Indian territories under its illegal occupation. We call upon parties concerned to cease such actions,” he said.
The CPEC is part of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and from the start, India has been critical of the BRI as the corridor passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
The Pakistan-China press statement was issued last Saturday following a meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi at Chengdu in Sichuan province in China as Pakistani briefed China on the “deterioration of the situation” in Jammu and Kashmir.
Despite failing to raise the Kashmir issue on various international platforms, Pakistan has been making concerted efforts to internationalise the Kashmir issue after New Delhi announced in August 2019 to abrogate article 370 that took away the special powers of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two union territories.
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