Erdogan tones down Kashmir mention in UN speech

United Nations: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again raised the Kashmir issue at the United Nations, but his statement was milder compared to those he made the previous two years.

“We maintain stand in favor of solving the ongoing problem in Kashmir for 74 years through dialogue between the parties and within the framework of relevant UN resolutions,” he said on Tuesday in his speech at the General Assembly’s summit.

But last year he had described the Kashmir situation as a “burning issue” and criticized the abolition of the special status for Kashmir.

And in 2019, Erdogan had said that “despite the resolutions adopted, Kashmir is still besieged, and eight million people are stuck in Kashmir,” he said referring to the Indian union territory.

Reacting to Erdogan’s statement in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cancelled a scheduled visit to Turkey.

India maintains that under the Simla Agreement of 1972 between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was at that time the president of Pakistan, Kashmir is a bilateral matter and should not be internationalized.

In his speech on Tuesday, Erdogan also made a mild reference to the problems faced by the Uighur Muslim minority in China.

Image courtesy of thesatimes

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