Pakistan tries to up ante but UNSC seeks accountability for Pahalgam attack

The UN Security Council (UNSC) closed-door meeting on rising India-Pakistan tensions expectedly failed to yield any substantive outcome for Pakistan. According to Indian government sources, Pakistan’s efforts to internationalise the issue made little headway with the Council as it advised Islamabad to resolve issues bilaterally with India and sought accountability for the Pahalgam terrorist attack, while expressing concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear rhetoric and missile tests.

While views were expressed individually by some after the consultations, the Council didn’t collectively make any statement. The least Pakistan would have hoped for is an oral statement by the Council president. Not taken in by what the Indian side saw as diplomatic grandstanding by Pakistan, which is a non-permanent Council member currently, the member-states are learnt to have condemned the Pahalgam attack in the 90-minute meeting and posed “tough questions” about the likely involvement of UN-proscribed Pakistan based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Former Indian permanent representative to UN Syed Akbaruddin said Pakistan’s quest to resurrect an agenda item which has not been deliberated upon formally since 1965 by the Council expectedly did not take off.

“The lack of a response by the Council to Pakistan’s briefing is a vindication of the Indian stance,” said Akbaruddin, who was India’s ambassador to the UN when Pakistan last sought closed-door consultations through China in 2019. That was after India revoked the special status of J&K in August 2019.

The 2019 meeting too had ended without any outcome or formal statement even though China had strongly pushed for it. Closed-door meetings comprise informal discussions that are held not in the Council room but in an adjacent chamber with limited number of delegates. For Pakistan, like in 2019, the latest meeting too was more an exercise in managing public perception than advancing any meaningful discussions, even though the consultations were held under the India-Pakistan Question that relates to J&K and not under, as it was meant to be initially, the generic “Threats to International Peace and Security” agenda item.

In the meeting, according to sources here who spoke on condition of anonymity, members disapproved of the false flag narrative initially propounded by Pakistan and asked “tough questions” about the likely involvement of UN proscribed terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba in the attack. There were questions also about the targeting of tourists based on their religious identity. “There was broad condemnation of the terrorist attack and recognition of the need for accountability. Some members specifically brought up the targeting of tourists on the basis of their religious faith,’’ said a source, adding many members expressed concern that Pakistan’s missile tests and nuclear rhetoric were escalatory factors.

Some Council members before the meeting were reported to have backed the idea of an independent international investigation into the attack. According to the Security Council Report, China and Greece appeared to have already indicated - before the meeting - their support for such an investigation. Such a probe though will need the consent of both India and Pakistan.

Pakistan issued a statement after the meeting in which it said that Council members expressed “deep concern” about the risk of escalation and urged restraint. It also claimed several members underscored that the J&K dispute remained the root cause of regional instability.