UN panel adopts Pak resolution on people's self-determination

Islamabad: Pakistan on Tuesday said a UN General Assembly committee has unanimously passed a resolution sponsored by it which reaffirms that the universal realisation of the right of peoples to self-determination was a fundamental condition for the guarantee of human rights.

The resolution, co-sponsored by 72 countries, was adopted without a vote in the 193-member Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues, Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

The resolution is expected to come up for General Assembly's endorsement next month.

The text of the resolution also declared the 193-member body's firm opposition to acts of foreign military intervention, aggression and occupation, since these have resulted in the suppression of the right of peoples to self-determination and other human rights in certain parts of the world, the Foreign Office statement said.

The resolution also called on those states responsible to cease immediately their military intervention and occupation of foreign countries and territories, as well as all acts of repression, discrimination, exploitation and maltreatment, it said.

Presenting the draft, Pakistan's UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said the right to self-determination was a fundamental principle of the United Nations Charter and international law, the statement said.

"Exercise of this right has enabled millions across the world to emerge from the yolk of colonial and foreign occupation and alien domination," she was quoted as saying.

"Many of us, present here today, are proud inheritors of this struggle to achieve a life of dignity and honour, as free citizens of independent states," she said.

"Political observers say the resolution, which Pakistan has been tabling since 1981, serves to focus the world's attention on the struggle by peoples for their inalienable right to self-determination, including those in Kashmir and Palestine," the Foreign Office said.