Pakistan's letter on Jammu and Kashmir: China calls informal UNSC consultations on Friday

New Delhi: China has asked for an informal closed-door consultation on Friday at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in New York over the letter written by Pakistan. The informal consultations will see the exchange of views among the UNSC members on Pakistan Foreign Minister SM Qureshi's letter to UNSC President, Polish envoy Joanna Wronecka on Kashmir, after New Delhi's decision to remove special status for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Pakistani FM asked the letter to be disseminated at the earliest and that a meeting of UNSC should be called but so far no such call has been taken. Pakistan is keen to have a meeting in which it gets the right to speak and record of discussion takes place. Equatorial Guinea, which is one of the non-permanent members of UNSC, said all the members are waiting for instructions from the Chair of the Council, Poland.

"Pakistan has requested for a meeting but we have to receive the instruction of the chair of the council until it's decided. He is making consultations now," Anatolio Ndong Mba, Permanent Representative of Equatorial Guinea told reporters.

Last week, a letter written by Pakistan was not taken in any of the UNSC meetings.

Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz, who have received called from External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar and Qureshi has said, "we expressed concerns over current tensions between India and Pakistan...we are in favour of a dialogue between Pakistan and India to sort out differences. We hope both countries can work out mutually beneficial solution bilaterally." Meanwhile, Russia has said there is no information on any initiative on Pakistan's letter.

Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to UN said, "There is no direct information that there will be some meeting, not any initiative to my knowledge." He said, "Russia will not object if it is a closed meeting...We need to discuss first among ourselves because it has been a long time since UNSC touched on this file. We need to compare notes. And reload this file."

Asked if Moscow is doing anything behind the scenes, Polyanskiy said, "Everybody is doing something behind the scenes because we are all worried including Moscow."