20091965 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Chagla (India) in the Security Council meeting No. 1242 held on 20 September 1965.
20091965 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Chagla (India) in the Security Council meeting No. 1242 held on 20 September 1965.
It is already Monday morning and I do not think any one of us wants to see the sun rise; therefore, I will try to be as brief as possible.
Mr. President, may I first compliment you and your colleagues on your strenuous and heroic attempts to produce a resolution which has so much support and which, I take it, has been adopted in the interest of securing peace and the cessation of the hostilities in the subcontinent of India which are going on at present.
The main concern of the Security Council was the cessation of hostilities. You have sat here from day to day you have sat here until almost 2 o'clock this morning because you realize what is happening Men are being killed, there are widows and orphans, devastation rages in all directions, and all men of peace and goodwill naturally desire that this terrible bloodshed should come to an end.
As far as my Government is concerned, and as I have pointed out before, we accepted an unconditional cease-fire as far back as 15 September 1965 and, as I again pointed out. Pakistan did not. I threw out a challenge to the representative of Pakistan (1241st meeting) as to whether he was prepared to accept an unconditional cease-fire; no answer has as yet been given to that challenge. Not only that, he has repeated today the conditions for a cease-fire on which President Ayub Khan has been insisting in his correspondence with the Secretary General. But what is worse, the representative of Pakistan says-and I have taken down his words-that if the Kashmir problem is not solved, "another and wider conflagration is bound to ensue ''. The threat is already there. This aggression is not enough. The representative of Pakistan wants the members of the Security Council to know and I do ask you to make a note of this-that if the Kashmir problem is not solved according to his liking and to his country's liking, another and wider conflagration will ensue.
This is not the attitude or the conduct of a peace-loving country. In the first place, he refuses to accept an unconditional cease-fire; in the second place, even before these hostilities have come to an end, he threatens this great international body with a future conflagration which will break out if the Kashmir problem is not solved. That is the love that Pakistan has for peace and international understanding.
As I read it, the resolution just adopted is not directed against my country. We have already accepted an unconditional cease-fire and we certainly will carry it out if Pakistan will carry it out. To the extent that the resolution deals with a cease-fire, it can only be directed against Pakistan which has not accepted an unconditional cease-fire.
With regard to the rest of the resolution, all that I am going to say now is that I adhere to everything I said in the two statements I have made in this Council (1239th and 124!st meeting). Various matters are dealt with in this resolution, and I have taken those matters up in those statements. My Government adheres to every one of those statements, and my Government also adheres to the explanations given by the Prime Minister of India in his letter dated 14 September (see S/6683). Therefore, my position is perfectly clear and the position of my Government is also perfectly clear. We have come here before you to help you to stop the hostilities. We give you full cooperation. To the extent that this resolution deals with other matters, I do not wish to comment on them because I have already done so in my two previous statements, and the Prime Minister has commented on them in his letter of 14 September.