India walks out of UNGA protesting Imran's diatribe

UNITED NATIONS: The Indian delegate at the United Nations General Assembly session on Friday walked out in protest when Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan began attacking India in his speech at the high-level meeting.

First Secretary MijitoVinito, who was sitting on the second seat in the first row of the Assembly chamber, stood up and left as soon as Khan turned on India by focusing on the RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS).

In a tweet, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, T.S. Tirumurti decried Khan's attacks as "warmongering and obfuscation".

Khan's pre-recorded speech was screened at the General Assembly chamber during the annual meeting stymied this year by the Covid-19 precautions.

A new element tucked into Khan's 34-minute speech, more than a third of which was devoted to India, was a call for the Security Council to send its peacekeeping force to Kashmir by drawing a parallel to East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste.

"The Security Council must prevent a disaster conflict (in Kashmir) and secure the implementation of its own resolutions, as it did in the case of East Timor," Khan said. The Security Council authorised international intervention and sent peacekeepers in the aftermath of the Indonesian invasion of the former Portuguese colony, but a parallel would require such a force to clear Pakistanis in Kashmir in defiance of its resolution demanding their withdrawal.

Khan also declared a thinly veiled support for the attacks on India by the militants.

"The government and the people of Pakistan are committed to standing by and supporting the Kashmiri brothers and sisters in their legitimate struggle for self-determination," he said.

To preemptively deny the involvement in any Pakistan-sponsored attacks on India, Khan said, "We have consistently sensitised the world community about a false flag operation." (IANS)

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