United Nations: Introducing a new irritant into the bilateral ties, Pakistan has complained to UN Security Council alleging that India was building a wall along the Line of Control (LoC) in violation of the world body’s resolutions. Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Maleeha Lodhi, has in a letter to President of the Security Council, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, alleged that India was planning to construct a 10-meter high and 135-feet wide embankment (wall) along the 197-km Working Boundary between Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan.
The planned wall, according to Pakistan, was to convert the LoC “into a quasi international border”. India did not immediately react directly to the allegation on the alleged wall plan but described the contents of two letters written by Lodhi on Sept 4 and 9 as “contradictory”.
India would respond to these claims “at the appropriate time”, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup told reporters here. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif are staying in Hotel Waldorf Astoria here but Islamabad’s attitude, as reflected in Lodhi’s letters, appear to have diminished further any prospects of a meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
