A top United Nations counterterrorism official has said that a resolution of the Kashmir conflict between and India required goodwill of the member states.
“We need also a goodwill of member states. How can we resolve that without the goodwill of member states,” UN Counterterrorism Committee Executive Directorate Executive Director Jean-Paul Laborde said.
Laborde was responding to a question on the longstanding Kashmir dispute and the problem of militancy and terrorism in the region resulting from this unresolved conflict.
“In preventive diplomacy and resolution of conflict, the role of the UN is to put people together and to continue to speak. Hopefully we will one day finish and resolve this conflict and hopefully we will have reduction of acts of terrorism,” Laborde told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York.
The UN comments were latest in a series of statements calling for calm in the Indian-controlled part of the disputed territory, where Indian forces have killed scores protesters this month.
The United States has expressed its deep concern over violence in Kashmir, where a continuing clampdown on the freedom of expression and protesters has turned it into a besieged valley. New Delhi has been unable to explain the use of brute force against protesters, and instead alleged that it is being carried out by UN-declared terrorists.
Pakistan has accused India of perpetrating state terror on unarmed protesters, and sought international support for a resolution to the lingering conflict, which many South Asian experts believe incites militancy in the region.
The killing of separatist commander Burhan Wani this month plunged Kashmir into violence as Indian security forces used lethal force against civilians protesting the killing of Wani.
Both Pakistan and India claim the disputed territory in their entirety, and have fought two full-scale wars over the dispute, and another conflict in Kargil in 1999.
