22011948 Speech made by Mr. Lopez {Colombia) in the Security Council Meeting held on 22nd January 1948 on change in Agenda of the Meeting
22011948 Speech made by Mr. Lopez {Colombia) in the Security Council Meeting held on 22nd January 1948 on change in Agenda of the Meeting
I should like to support the position taken by the President in regard to this matter. To my mind it is perfectly clear, it seems to me that we are discussing today the other end of an argument that we had on a previous occasion.
At the previous meeting of the Security Council, the representative of Pakistan was trying to make sure—so it seemed to me—that the Security Council would iu due course take up the discussion of the other matters which he wanted to bring before the Security Council, and today the representative of India—if 1 do not misunderstand his position—wants to make sure that we discuss the Jammu and Kashmir situation first.
The representative of India has made it very clear that he does not object to the discussion being broadened to include other situations which the representative of Pakistan may wish to bring before the Security Council. The representative of India, however, made the very legitimate request that he should be allowed a little more time in which to obtain data and prepare his argument, in case we are going to take up the different matters today. That, it seems to me, is very much the same as the request originally granted to the representative of Pakistan. The representative of Pakistan also made a request for additional time to prepare his case, in order to bring before the Security Council the other matters that had been brought up in the original statement of the representative of India. Therefore, there does not seem to be any difference*in that respect.
The proposal that we have already accepted [document S/654, 230th meeting] provides that the commission, which the Security Council decided to set up, would first take up the question of Jammu and Kashmir, and next, the matters brought up by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan in his letter of 15 January 1948. We have agreed to set up that commission, and I suppose we are now in the process of appointing members to that commission so that it can begin its work on the Jammu and Kashmir situation.
In the meantime, I think it is perfectly proper for the representative of Pakistan to have sent his letter to the Security Council, bringing to the attention of the Security Council the other situations which the representative of Pakistan wishes the Security Council to investigate.
Therefore, it seems to me that we all agree that it is perfectly proper to discuss the general question, the India-Pakistan question which covers the two situations, the Jammu and Kashmir question originally brought to the attention of the Security Council by India, and the other situations which the representative of Pakistan wants to call to the attention of the Security Council now.
It would be perfectly in order to place the general question on the agenda as it now appears, and then, in the order in which they originally appeared, first the letter from the representative of India; second, the letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan dated 15 January 1948; and, third, the letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan dated 20 January 1948.
I therefore believe that once we have made it clear that the Security Council is going to consider the two situations — Jammu and Kashmir first, and the other situation afterward— there should be no further disagreement as to the way in which they are included on the agenda.
(SCOR, 3rd Year, Mtg. no. 231, pp. 152-153)