The United Nations Secretary-General's office has said Ban Ki-moon did not make any statement on the Kashmir situation.
While seeking to back the staffer who e-mailed Mr. Ban's purported comments to three journalists, Martin Nesirky, spokesman for the Secretary-General, said his office did not release a statement but a “media guidance” that was prepared by the U.N. Secretariat, and that “seems to have been taken out of context.”
“There were questions. As a consequence, the Spokesperson's Office then released the media guidance, which was prepared by the U.N. Secretariat. That's all I can say on it,” Mr. Nesirky said.
Media guidance is used by public relations to prepare a person with answers to questions that could be put to him. It is a convention media guidance is not treated as the person's observations until he has actually spoken what has been written for him by his media managers.
The spokesperson's statement was picked up with a sense of fulfilment by the Ministry of External Affairs. The Ministry was taken aback by the Secretary-General's observations and then pressed its New York-based Permanent Mission into action. The Mission found out that Mr. Ban made no such comments.
When journalists asked Mr. Nesirky how he could blame the media for twisting the content of the e-mail and whether it was due to pressure by India, he declined to take any more question. “All I can say is what I've already told you. I don't have anything further to add.”
On Tuesday, India reacted angrily to Mr. Ban's observations on the unrest in Kashmir. Its Permanent Mission in New York sought a clarification from the office of the Secretary-General and was told “no such question” was raised at a press conference, nor did Mr. Ban make any such comment.
When contacted the same day, the person who circulated the e-mail, Farhan Haq, claimed that Mr. Ban had indeed made the observations. “It was not a statement but remarks in answer to a question … on this topic,” he had said.
