Guterres again offers ‘good offices’ to resolve Indo-Pak conflicts

By Arul Louis United Nations, Jan 29 : UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has again offered his “good offices” to India and Pakistan to resolve their problems, even though New Delhi has rejected his involvement in bilateral disputes.
“Our good offices are always available, and we will insist within it of finding peaceful solutions for problems that have no military solution,” he said on Thursday when he was asked by a Pakistani journalist about Kashmir.
In an apparent reference to their nuclear arms, he warned: “It is clear, when seeing Pakistan and India, any military confrontation between the two would be a disaster of unmitigated proportions for both countries and for the whole world.” Guterres said that “unfortunately” the call he had made in 2019 for resolving the disputes between the South Asian neighbours is “the same that I can say today”.
“Now, things have not moved in the right direction. I do believe that it is absolutely essential to have a de-escalation of the situation, namely in the Line of Contact (meaning Control). I think it’s absolutely essential for the two countries to be able to come together and seriously discuss their problems,” the UN chief noted.
He added that it was essential for human rights to be “fully respected” in Kashmir.