India Hits Out At UN General Assembly President

India on Friday hit out at President of the UN General Assembly Volkan Bozkir for his comments on Jammu and Kashmir, saying his “misleading and prejudiced” remarks does “great disservice to the office he occupies”.

Mr Bozkir, at a press conference in Islamabad along with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Thursday, said it was “Pakistan’s duty” to bring the issue of the Jammu and Kashmir more strongly to the UN.

In a strong reaction, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said his remarks are “unacceptable” and his reference to the Indian union territory is “unwarranted”.

“When an incumbent President of the UN General Assembly makes misleading and prejudiced remarks, he does great disservice to the office he occupies. The President of the UN General Assembly’s behaviour is truly regrettable and surely diminishes his standing on the global platform,” MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in response to a media query on the issue.

Expressing “strong opposition to the unwarranted references made with respect to the Indian Union Territory of J-K” by Mr Bozkir during his recent visit to Pakistan, Mr Bagchi said his remarks that “Pakistan is ‘duty bound’ to raise this issue in the UN more strongly are unacceptable. Nor indeed is there any basis for comparison to other global situations.”