Pakistan on Thursday categorically rejected  ‘unwarranted and preposterous comments from India on the recent Pakistan-China joint statement.

“Pakistan categorically rejects the unwarranted and preposterous comments made by the Spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on the Pakistan-China Joint Statement of 6 February 2022,” said a statement released by the FO spokesperson. 

The statement added that Islamabad also strongly rejected New Delhi’s persistent propaganda against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

“Pakistan has shared irrefutable evidence of India’s sinister campaign to sabotage CPEC through its dossiers released in 2020 and 2021”, it stated adding that there was strong evidence of Indian involvement in the recent attempts to stir up unrest in Balochistan by supporting anti-state elements.

The statement further stated that Kulbhushan Jadhav – a serving Indian Navy Officer caught spying in Pakistan – was “living and irrefutable proof” of how India had been seeking to sponsor and patronise subversive activities in Pakistan and the region.

“Similarly, New Delhi’s baseless claims over Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) can neither change the facts of history nor the legal status of the Jammu & Kashmir dispute”, the statement said, adding that IIOJK never was and never will be India’s “integral part”.

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The spokesperson maintained that it was an irrefutable fact that India acted as an occupation force in IIOJK in clear violation of the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, and that its illegal and unilateral actions of August 5, 2019 – wherein it sought to change the internationally recognised disputed status of IIOJK and to alter its demographic structure – were rejected by Kashmiris, Pakistan, and the international community.

“Pakistan will continue to extend all possible support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle against India’s illegal occupation,” it added.

The statement emphasized that rather than resorting to “false and misleading assertions without success”, India must vacate its illegal occupation of the disputed territory, immediately reverse its illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019, and “let Kashmiris exercise their inalienable right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the UN”.

On Wednesday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs rejected references to Jammu and Kashmir and an economic corridor passing through Kashmir in Pakistan and China’s joint statement. It called on China and Pakistan to “not interfere in India’s internal affairs” or to alter the status quo in areas that they claim Pakistan “illegally” occupied.

Moreover, India claimed that the region as well as the Union Territory of Ladakh “have been, are and will always remain integral and inalienable parts of India”.