08031950 Text of the Speech made by Sir Benegal N. Rau (India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 469 held on 8 March 1950

08031950 Text of the Speech made by Sir Benegal N. Rau (India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 469 held on 8 March 1950

I communicated to my Government the text of the four Power joint draft resolution as introduced in this Council on 24 February 1950 (467th meeting) and I have now been instructed to make the following statement:

My Government has given the most careful consideration to the resolution jointly sponsored by the representatives of Cuba, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. It has no comment to make on the preamble.

Paragraph 1 of the draft resolution calls upon the Governments of India and Pakistan "to prepare and execute within a period of five months...a programme of demilitarization on the basis of the principles of paragraph 2 of General McNaughton's proposal, or of such modifications of those principles as may be mutually agreed". In the statement which I made before the Security Council on 7 February [463rd meeting), I fully explained the views of my Government on the legal and moral issues involved in the Kashmir dispute and on the proposals of General McNaughton. Those views were conceived in no spirit of obstruction, but are reasonable and just and my Government wishes to reaffirm them.

In paragraph 2 of the draft resolution the appointment of one United Nations representative to perform the functions described therein is envisaged. My Government prefers that those functions should be assigned to a group of three, one to be nominated by it, one by the Government of Pakistan, and the third, who would be the Chairman, by the Security Council in consultation with the two Governments, Failing this, my Government desires that the person chosen as representative should be acceptable to it.

As regards sub-paragraph 2 (a), my Government assumes that agreements that might be reached hereafter are meant. It also assumes similarly that the agreements referred to in sub paragraph 2 (d) are agreements on demilitarization that may be reached hereafter between the parties. It is my Government's firm intention to continue to observe the conditions suggested in paragraph 3 of the draft resolution.

This concludes the statement which my Government has instructed me to make. As I have already said, this statement is based upon the draft resolution as introduced on 24 February 1950. I shall now telegraph to my Government the explanatory statement made by Sir Terence Shone on behalf of the sponsoring Powers, and I hope to give the Security Council at our next meeting my Government's views on the draft resolution as now explained.