UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has brushed aside India`s claim of Jammu and Kashmir being its `integral part`, saying the disputed status of the Himalayan state is acknowledged by the United Nations and the international community.

`Every official UN map depicts Jammu and Kashmir as disputed territory,` Pakistani delegate Gul Qaiser Sarvani told the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Monday as its high-level discussion on UN peacekeeping operations came to an end.

Mr Sarwani, who is a counselor at the Pakistan mission to the UN, was reacting to Indian Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish`s claim that `Kashmir has been, is, and will always be an integral and inalienable part` of his country after Pakistan`s earnest call on the 15-member council to implement its own resolutions promising the Kashmiri people the right to self-determination through a UN-supervised plebiscite.

Exercising his right of reply to Hasrih`s assertion, the Pakistani delegate said, `No amount of obfuscation can change the legal, political and historical reality Jammu and Kashmir isnot, and has never been a so-called `integral` part of India.

`It is a disputed territory, whose `final disposition` is to be decided by the people of Jammu and Kashmir through a UN supervised plebiscite, as demanded by numerous resolutions of the Security Council,` Sarwani added.

Nearly a million troops in held Kashmir Pointing out that India holds Kashmir by brute force with over 900,000 troops and paramilitary forces, Mr Sarwani said that India has killed more than 100,000 innocent Kashmiris since 1989.

`It (India) has imposed the densest occupation in history, with one Indian soldier for every eight Kashmiri men, women and children,` the Pakistani delegate said, adding that the UN has duly recorded India`s gross violations of human rightsin occupied territory.

As regard the Indian envoy`s allegation of cross-border terrorism, Mr Sarwani said, `It is most ironic that India, which is committing theworst form of state terrorism in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, is portraying itself as the victim, adding, that this was a familiar ploy of all occupiers and colonisers to paint legitimate struggles for freedom and liberation as terrorism.

Instead of maligning others for terrorism, he added, India should sincerely reflect on its own campaign of orchestrating targeted assassinations, subversion and terrorism in foreign countries.

`It is India which supports and finances terrorism against Pakistan through banned outfits Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Baloch Liberation Army (BL A) and the Majeed Brigade.

UNSC urged to implement resolutions Earlier, Pakistan called on the UNSC to implement its own resolutions promising the Kashmiri people the right to self-determination through a UN-supervised plebiscite aimed at resolving the decades-old Kashmir dispute.

While participating in the UNSC debate on `Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Advancing Adaptability in UN PeaceOperations Responding to New Realities,` Special Assistant to Prime Minister/Minister of State (Foreign Affairs) Syed Tariq Fatemi reminded the security members that the Kashmir dispute still awaited a just and final settlement in accordance with the relevant resolutions that promised to the Kashmiri people the right to self-determination through a UN supervised plebiscite.

`It is the responsibility of this council to ensure the realisation of that right for the Kashmiri people, and promote a just and lasting settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, by taking measures to implement its own resolutions,` he said.

`As others have stated, it is important to address the root causes of the conflicts to establish durable peace.

Talking about challenges confronting UN peacekeeping operations, Mr Fatemi said Pakistan is hosting the UN Peacekeeping Ministerial preparatory meeting in Islamabad from April 15, whose outcomes would feed into the ongoing deliberations on the future of UN peace operations.-APP