Security Council

At its 791st meeting the Council began consideration of the India-Pakistan question in the light of a report by Ambassador Jarring on the visit he had made to the sub-continent at the request of the Council on February 21, 1957. The representative from Pakistan, Mr. Khan Noon, who opened the discussion, observed that Mr. Jarring stated that he could not report any concrete proposals likely to contribute towards a settlement of the dispute. Mr. Noon declared that every effort made by the four mediators appointed by the Council from time to time to create appropriate conditions in the state of Jammu and Kashmir for the holding of a fair and free plebiscite under the auspices of the UN had failed because India was not prepared to carry out its international obligations. Every suggestion made by Mr. Jarring for a peaceful solution of the problem was accepted by Pakistan, he said, so that if, as recorded in the report, his suggestions were not mutually acceptable, they were unacceptable only to India. Mr. Noon maintained that every problem having any bearing on the holding of a plebiscite was taken care of in the international agreement contained in the two United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan (UNCIP) resolutions of 1948 and 1949 and listed as violations of the resolutions a number of acts by India, such as the inclusion of Kashmir as a state of India in the Indian Constitution, and the financial integration of Kashmir into India in 1955. He enumerated several Pakistanian concessions, including the withdrawal of tribesmen and Pakistanian nationals from Kashmir in advance of the truce agreement, although this obligation arose only after the signing of the truce agreement, and the agreement to the large-scale disbandment of Azad forces before the Plebiscite Administrator assumed office, although under the UNCIP resolution this move was envisaged only after the appointment of the Plebiscite Administrator.