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‘Theatrics don’t work at UNGA’: Syed Akbaruddin on Imran Khan’s pledge to raise Kashmir issue

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had on Wednesday pledged to present the ‘Kashmir case’ at the UN General Assembly ‘like no one ever did before’.

‘Theatrics don’t work at UNGA’: Syed Akbaruddin on Imran Khan’s pledge to raise Kashmir issue

India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Syed Akbaruddin. (Photo: IANS)

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi emplaned for a week-long visit to the US, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin said that “there has been a consistent trajectory of boom in New Delhi-Washington relations”.

PM Modi is scheduled to address Indian-Americans at the “Howdy, Modi!” event on September 22 in Texas’ Houston, where he will also be joined by President Donald Trump.

This would also be the first time that an American president would be addressing thousands of Indian-Americans at one place in the US.

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Following the Houston event, PM Modi will once again meet Trump on Tuesday on the sidelines of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly.

The meeting on the sidelines of UNGA will be the fourth Modi-Trump meet in as many months.

“These are reflections of that boom and rapid growth of ties between India and the US,” Akbaruddin asserted.

The focus of the event that the PM will participate in at the UN is on ‘Countering terrorist narratives and violent extremists through internet and cyberspace’, he said adding that “India will fight against terrorism on every forum”.

“Terrorism has and will be a major factor in India’s foreign policy orientation because it affects our people in ways which very few external influences do,” the UN ambassador asserted.

He said India’s efforts on the global forum has resulted in the UNSC condemning terrorist attacks in the country including the Pulwama attack. He further stressed that after more than a decade of trying, India was able to get the UN Sanctions Committee to list Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

The official also termed the possibility of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan raising Kashmir issue at UNGA as “theatrics” to grab global attention.

Rants and theatrics do not work at the UNGA, neither do they ever make a world leader any more significant a part of the world history, he was quoted by news agency ANI.

Earlier, the UN ambassador had said that “Pakistan may stoop low but New Delhi will soar high” when asked about its strategy to counter Islamabad’s propaganda at the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) high-level meetings next week.

His remarks came a day after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday pledged to present the “Kashmir case” at the UN General Assembly “like no one ever did before”.

India is pulling out all the stops to counter the Pakistani narrative on Jammu and Kashmir at the UNGA meeting on 27 September.

Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan are scheduled to speak at the UNGA. With Khan declaring his resolve to highlight Kashmir in his speech, India is gearing up to rebut him point by point.

After its failure at the United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Pakistan is now attempting to target India at UNGA.

Pakistan has been desperate since the Centre decided to abolish the special status of Jammu and Kashmir granted under Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcated the state on August 5.

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