03121959  Letter Dated 3 December 1959 from the Permanent Representative of Pakistan Aly Khan Addressed to the President of the Security Council

Letter Dated 3 December 1959 from the Permanent Representative of Pakistan Aly Khan Addressed to the President of the Security Council

Under instructions from my Government, I have the honour to draw the attention of the Security Council to reports, widely published in the international Press, of recent events in the eastern part of the province of Ladakh of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

For reasons which are evident and need no explanation, my Government is not in a position to ascertain the veracity of these reports or to determine the actual extent of the encroachment, if any, by a foreign Power into the area in question which is an integral part of the Jammu and Kashmir State. It follows that my Government is not able to endorse, or comment upon, the reasons for action and for counter-action taken by either side in the controversy between India and China and in the confusion which has been attendant upon the events in Ladakh.

Nevertheless, consistently with its commitments to the United Nations and its stake and involvement in the problem of Jammu and Kashmir, my Government is anxious that the present situation, arising from the events in Ladakh, should not be allowed to obscure, far less to affect or detract from, the decisions of the Security Council, embodied in its resolutions of 21 April 1948, 30 March 1951, 24 January 1957, and in the resolutions of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan dated 13 August 1948 and 5 January 1949, which have been jointly accepted by both India and Pakistan and by which both Governments, according to their continued declarations, stand engaged. The substance of these decisions is that the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir shall be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations and that, to enable such a plebiscite being held, all outside forces shall not only not be be augmented but be withdrawn from the State.

It is the most logical consequence of this position that, pending the implementation of these decisions of the Security Council and the resultant final disposition of the State, the situation in the Jammu and Kashmir State continues to be a matter with which the Security Council has to remain closely and intimately concerned. The preservation of the international frontiers of the State of Jammu and Kashmir is, therefore, a matter which falls directly within the primary responsibilities of the Security Council and no Government can take any action with regard to these frontiers save in consonance with the decisions of the Security Council.

For reasons implied in paragraph 2 above, my Government would leave it to the Security Council to judge the precise extent to which the present situation along the border between Ladakh and China impinges upon the responsibilities of the Council. However, my Government is bound by its duty to declare before the Security Council that, pending a determination of the future of Kashmir through the will of the people impartially ascertained, no positions taken or adjustments made by either of the parties to the present controversy between India and China, or any similar controversy in the future, shall be valid or affect the status of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir or the imperatives of the demilitarization and self-determination of the State laid down in the resolution referred to in paragraph 3 above.

My Government regards it as a matter of self-evident principle that it is for the sovereign authority freely evolved by, and acceptable to, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and for that authority alone, to effect, or refuse to effect, may adjustment of its frontiers with any foreign Power and that the emergence of such an authority shall not be allowed to be impeded by any necessity, supposed or real, of military defence felt at present by any party within the territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

I request that this communication may kindly be circulated. as a Security Council document and brought to the notice of the members of the Security Council.

Please accept, etc....

(Signed) PRINCE ALY KEAN Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the

United Nations

(Source: UN Document no. S/4242)