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Written by: Kashmir News Bureau with inputs Agencies

Created: 13 July 2018

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has backed Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein's call for an international investigation into human rights situation in Kashmir saying that it represents the "voice of the UN". He also defended at a news conference on Thursday his own report on children in armed conflict that referred to situations in Jammu and Kashmir, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

He denied India's assertions that his report overstepped his mandate and that Zeid's had no mandate and said that they were both covered by the "the general mandate of human rights instruments". Asked at his news conference if he supported Zeid's call for the independent international investigation, Guterres said: "As you can imagine all the action of the Human Rights High Commissioner is an action that represents the voice of the UN in relation to that issue."

Answering a question about the reports running counter to India's long-standing assertion that Kashmir is a part of India and any problem between the neighbours was a bilateral issue among India and Pakistan, Guterres said there was a distinction between political matters and human rights. He said: "One thing is the definition of mechanisms for a political solution of a situation in a country and the other thing is the general mandate of human rights instruments in relation to human rights everywhere."

"What the Human Rights Commissioner did was the use of its own competencies and capacities as it does in all other parts of the world to report on what he considers to be relevant human rights violations," Guterres explained. "It does not mean that there is in that a preference for any kind of methodology for a political solution," he added.  Pertinently, Zeid, whose term gets over at the end of 2018, asked the Human Rights Council to set up a Commission of Inquiry into the human rights situation in Kashmir. Rejecting Zeid's report, India's External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said it was "overtly prejudiced and seeks to build a false narrative".