India's Minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar, has criticised the West for leveraging Kashmir to advance their geopolitical agenda in Asia. He emphasized that this approach aims to render the world's largest democratic nation "vulnerable" on the issue.
"We were taken in for a ride by a set of countries who had their geo-political agenda, who used Kashmir as an issue of vulnerability for us and they continue to use it. It took us decades to finally take the call on Article 370. To me, Article 370 was not just the call within the country...it actually has profound foreign policy implications," he stated during a public event in Bengaluru, the capital of India's southern state of Karnataka.
"Today it is very clear, in fact not now, it was very clear by 1970s, that taking the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council was a fundamental error because you are taking it at the court where the judges are all stacked against you. These were Western countries who had a bias towards Pakistan," he added.
In August 2019, India revoked Article 370, which granted semi-autonomous status to Kashmir within the framework of its constitution, resulting in increased tensions with Pakistan.
Islamabad responded with displeasure, and the government led by Imran Khan at the time severed diplomatic ties with the neighboring sovereign state.
However, India firmly asserted that the annulment of Article 370 was an internal matter, and Pakistan had no influence over events within its borders.
Last month, the Supreme Court of India upheld the decision by the government headed by Narendra Modi to abolish Article 370.