Photo by Gary Raynaldo /  Pakistan protesters rally in front of Permanent Mission Of India To The  United Nations at 235 E. 43rd Street in Manhattan Mar. 4, 2019.

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

Pakistan and India have been in a dispute over Kashmir since 1947.  The  dispute is said to be the oldest, unresolved international conflict in the world today. Kashmir is a disputed territory divided between India and Pakistan but claimed  by both sides. What makes the conflict potentially apocalyptic  is the fact that both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers. The latest conflict has many fearing potential for a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Violence erupted last  month after a suicide bombing that killed at least 40 Indian troops in Kashmir on 14 February.

Kashmir Suffers From the Worst Attack There in 30 Years: New York Times 

A vehicle filled with explosives rammed into a convoy of Indian paramilitary forces on a busy highway in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir on Thursday, killing at least 40 soldiers, in the worst attack in the disputed region in three decades, the NY Times reported. The bomber was a young Kashmiri who had joined a Pakistani militant group with links to al-Qaida and founded by the Pakistan-based cleric Masood Azhar.  India blamed Pakistan for “providing moral and material support to the terrorist organization, which is banned in Pakistan but operates openly there. On Feb. 26, India launched air strikes against Jaish-e-Muhammad’s training camps on the Pakistani side of Kashmir. Pakistan retaliated, claiming to have shot down two Indian fighter jets on Feb. 28.  Media reports said Indian sources claimed that only one Pakistani jet and one Indian jet had been downed, and an Indian pilot taken hostage by Pakistan.  The pilot was returned to India last Friday, easing tensions some what.  Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations,  Maleeha Lodhi briefed the UN on the Indian-Pakistan tensions following the deadly Kashmir  incident.  The Pakistani envoy said she categorically rejected all Indian allegations over the incident, according to a statement from the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations. Islamabad swiftly pulled recalled its ambassador to New Delhi.  Then, in a tit-for-tat move, India pulled its ambassador to Islamabad.

“I regretted that the knee-jerk Indian reaction was an all too familiar attempt to blame Pakistan without any credible investigation to determine facts.”

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations,  Maleeha Lodhi.

Photo by Gary Raynaldo / A protester holds up a sign with a nuclear bomb mushroom cloud pleading No More War! in front of Permanent Mission Of India To The  United Nations at 235 E. 43rd Street in Manhattan Mar. 4, 2019.

VIDEO by Gary Raynaldo on scene of Pakistani anti-war rally across from Permanent Mission Of India To The  United Nations at 235 E. 43rd Street in Manhattan Mar. 4, 2019.

Meanwhile,  the United Nations Urges India and Pakistan to Calm Down in Wake of Kashmir Attack 

Photo by Gary Raynaldo  /  United Nations Headquarters in New York  City.

“The Secretary-General has been following with great concern the situation in South Asia,” UN Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement on the 14 February terrorist attack that took place in the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir.    The spokesman said  Guterres reiterated his strong condemnation of the attack and stressed that it is essential that there be accountability under international law and the perpetrators of terrorist acts be brought swiftly to justice. The Secretary-General urgently appealed to the Governments of both India and Pakistan to exercise maximum restraint to ensure the situation does not further deteriorate.

“It is the belief of the Secretary-General that all difficult challenges can be resolved peacefully and satisfactorily through meaningful mutual engagement,”  the spokesman said.