Separatists aghast as UN drops mention of J&K as a dispute

One may be forgiven for mixing ones metaphors by describing separatists from the mountainous state of Jammu & Kashmir as at sea –but that would best describe their condition as news began to spread that the United Nations had dropped mention of Jammu & Kashmir as a ''dispute.''

While yesterday they were still floating on a hope and prayer, that the UN's turnaround may have been an oversight of some kind, just as the Pakistani representative at the UN had suggested, today it turned really bad for them as the technicalities of this decision by the UN emerged.

For the record it may be stated that the United Nations has indeed dropped mention of Jammu & Kashmir as a long-pending international ''dispute.'' 

On Monday, Pakistan's envoy Amjad Sial told the General Assembly debating the annual report of the UNSC that the absence of the J&K issue was "inadvertent".

''We understand this was an inadvertent omission, as Jammu & Kashmir is one of the oldest disputes on the agenda of the Security Council,'' Sial said during a discussion in the General Assembly on Security Council reforms.

He was taking objection to the fact that Kashmir did not figure in the latest annual report of the Security Council to the General Assembly.