20011948 Speech made by Mr. Noel Baker, Representative of United Kingdom in the Security Council Meeting on Draft Resolution held on 20th January 1948
20011948 Speech made by Mr. Noel Baker, Representative of United Kingdom in the Security Council Meeting on Draft Resolution held on 20th January 1948
I could, I think, make a long speech on the observations made by the representatives of India and Pakistan, and I think that the President would find it difficult to rule me out of order. But in accordance with the desire expressed by the representative of Syria, I hope that we shall not have a long debate.
I think I understand very well the preoccupations of both the representative of India and the representative of Pakistan.
There are points of substance in what they say and I think it is useful, perhaps, that their speeches have been made at this stage.
But under the chairmanship of the President a compromise has been arrived at by the two delegations on these very points. I have studied the resolution and I have listened most attentive to all that has been said this morning. It seems to me that the language of the resolution, and particularly of Clauses C and D, the drafting of which I much admire, expresses the compromise arrived at with great clarity and precision. I think it does full justice to the contentions of both parties as they have been put forward this morning. I think the plan is right in itself. The commission is to be established, as has been said, not to make the settlement, but to help to execute the settlement which the Security Council, we hope, will now make.
For these reasons I hope that the resolution will be adopted and that we shall set up the commission. As the next step let us, as our colleague from India has said, proceed swiftly to settle the Kashmir question, that is to say, to stop the fighting, but not only to stop the fighting but to get a definite settlement of the whole question and to settle the future of Kashmir on the basis of peaceful co-operation and impartial justice which both parties alike desire.
Of course it is true that the rights of Pakistan to raise any thing which their Government-thinks it right to raise before the Security Council will remain. It will be for their Government to decide what they desire to raise and when they will raise it.
However, I think that nothing which has been said by either of the two representatives this morning should delay the adoption of this resolution which, as I see it, is a first step in the process which, whatever form it may take, will lead to full agreement on all outstanding questions which are now ia dispute between the Governments of India and Pakistan.
I hope, therefore, that the Security Council will adopt the resolution.
(SCOR, 3rd Year, Mtg. no. 230, pp. 137-118)
Of course, there are certain differences between what was done in the Indonesian case and what was done in this case.
You adapt what you do to the circumstances of the case, the will of the parties and the necessities. But the principles are basically the same, and since the object of all of us, including our colleagues from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, is to secure a peaceful settlement, to stop the fighting and to settle the differences by common agreement, I should have thought that the Indonesian precedent was rather encouraging.
Nothing would be further from my mind-and I made it plain a dozen times-than to cut the Security Council out of the further work on this question with which we are now dealing, but I venture to think that there really must be some misunderstanding, the origin of which I have not found. To my way of thinking, this is a commission of the Security Council. It will be created by the resolution before us. Clause B of the resolution seems to me to be extremely plain. It says:
B. The Commission...shall act under the authority of the Security Council and in accordance with the directions it may receive from it. It shall keep the Security Council currently informed of its activities and of the development of the situation. It shall report to the Security Council regularly, submitting its conclusions and proposals".
I believe that in substance we are in agreement with our colleagues from the USSR and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and whatever we may think about the form—of course there may be differences—I hope that this resolution may be adopted.
(SCOR, 3rd Year, Mtg. no. 230, pp. 142-143)