New York, Sep 25: India’s external affairs minister Dr. S Jaishankar on Wednesday said China had totally misinterpreted New Delhi’s decision to revoke Article 370, remove special status given to Jammu and Kashmir and to bifurcate it into two new Union Territories – J&K and Ladakh.
“I think the Chinese misread what was happening there,” said Jaishankar, who is in New York to address the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) summit.
“I went a few days after the legislation to China and explained to them that as far as they were concerned, nothing had changed. India’s boundary had not changed, the Line of Actual Control had not changed,” he added.
Jaishankar reiterated India’s Kashmir move contains no implications for the nation’s eternal boundaries, adding, “We are sort of reformatting this within our existing boundaries.”
There is a 3,488-km-long border between China and India. The two nations have so far held 21 rounds of meetings between special envoys to resolve an intense spat over the boundary.
Earlier this month, China had stated it was closely watching the pertaining situations in Jammu and Kashmir and resisted any unilateral moves that would intensify the matters surrounding Kashmir issue. China, in an official joint statement with Pakistan, called for the Kashmir issue to be resolved peacefully in accordance with the United Nations (UN) charter, United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, and bilateral arrangements.
On August 16, China – a permanent member of the UNSC board and closest ally of Islamabad, had sought a closed-door conference to discuss the pertaining situation and development in Jammu and Kashmir, that ended without having to release any statement or outcomes from the panel.
Since India removed Article 370 from the Indian constitution, Pakistan have been making endeavours to attract international attention and get support against the decision, but however, recently the nation failed to file a resolution at the UN on the Kashmir issue.