India will deliver its toughest message on the U.N. mission on the LoC yet, telling visiting chief of the U.N. Peacekeeping forces, U.N. Undersecretary General Herve Ladsous, that the United Nations Military Observer Group on India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has “outlived its utility.”
The visit of Mr. Ladsous is part of a three-nation tour to some of the biggest contributors to the U.N.’s peacekeeping forces, India, Bangladesh and Nepal. He arrives in Delhi on Friday and will have meetings with officials of the Ministry of External Affairs, Defence and Home Affairs, given that both the army and the police contribute soldiers to the UNPKF. Informed sources said India would forcefully reiterate its stand that the UNMOGIP wind up its operations.
While there is no explanation why the government has decided to act against the UNMOGIP’s office allotments at this time, India does have more leverage with the UNPKF than ever before, given that it is the second highest contributor to the peacekeeping forces after Bangladesh.
Over the past 60 years, more than 1,70,000 Indian soldiers have been a part of 43 of 68 U.N. peacekeeping missions. The U.N. mission has been strapped by reduced offers of both funding and troops from several countries. Pakistan, the third largest contributor, has reduced its contribution by about 30% this year. Diplomatic sources said Mr. Ladsous would seek to explain that it was for the Security Council to withdraw the UNMOGIPs operations, even as he hopes to ask India for more troops for the U.N.’s 16 peacekeeping missions this year.
Mr. Ladsous’s visit comes two months after the government issued a notice telling the UNMOGIP in Delhi to vacate its government-allotted bungalow, along with four locations in Jammu and Kashmir by September 1. India has contended that the U.N. mission’s mandate, set up in 1948 had lapsed in 1971 after the ceasefire line changed, and the Shimla agreement.
However, Pakistan continues to welcome the UNMOGIP mission based there. Speaking in Islamabad on Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhury said “Pakistan will continue to facilitate the UNMOGIP, which is a source for providing credible information to the U.N. Security Council through its regular periodic reports. We have noted with concern that there were some administrative issues for the UMMOGIP in New Delhi but we believe it needs to be facilitated in the performance of its very important role.”
