United Nations, May 5 UN Assistant Secretary-General Mohamed Khaled Khiari will brief the Security Council at its closed-door meeting on Monday about the tense situation between India and Pakistan following the terrorist massacre in Pahalgam, according to the Council president’s office.
Khiari, who is from Tunisia, is in charge of the Middle East and Asia Pacific in the UN’s Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations.
Council President Evangelos Sekeris is convening the closed consultations at the request of Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Asim Iftikhar Ahmad.
Because Pakistan, currently an elected member of the Council, asked for closed consultations, India will likely be shut out of it because, under Council procedures, countries that are not members are not allowed to participate in the closed-door meetings, which are also referred to as "consultations of the whole".
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in an X post that it will “formally apprise the UNSC of the latest developments in South Asia”.
The meetings are held informally in a side room, not in the Council chamber, and no records of the consultations are published.
The meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. in New York (12:30 a.m. Tuesday in India).
Pakistan’s UN mission said that Ahmad will speak to reporters outside the Council after the meeting.
It said it was asking for the consultations "in view of the deteriorating regional environment and rising tensions between India and Pakistan, particularly the situation in Jammu and Kashmir".
The situation "poses a threat to both regional and international peace and security", Pakistan said.
Ahmad said on Friday that Pakistan was considering calling a meeting of the Council because "kinetic action" by India was imminent.
The Resistance Front, an affiliate of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, has owned responsibility for the terrorist massacre of 26 people in Pahalgam.
Following the attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed: "We will identify, trace, and punish every terrorist and their supporters. We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth”.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Shebaz Sharif last Tuesday to express “deep concern” over the rising tension between the two countries.
He also expressed his “strong condemnation” of the terrorist attack and said it was important to pursue “justice and accountability for these attacks through lawful means”, according to his Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Pakistan has mounted a diplomatic campaign at the UN, with Ahmad meeting Guterres, General Assembly President Philomen Yang, the representatives of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation members, and others in an attempt to assert its claims of innocence and call for de-escalation.
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