India rejects Pakistani assertions on Kashmir

"We are exercising our right of reply in response to the gratuitous references from the delegation of Pakistan about the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir, which is and has always been an integral part of India," Vinay Kumar, minister at the permanent mission of India said Tuesday.

"It is ironical that these comments have been made by a country which is persisting with its illegal occupation of a part of the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir. These references constitute a clear interference in the internal affairs of India and we reject them in their entirety," he said in his reply, a second time after Pakistan again raised the issue.

Earlier, reacting to External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna's assertion in his address to the UN that Kashmir was an integral part of India, the Pakistani mission to the UN contended that Zardari's statement on the issue was "not unwarranted".

Exercising its right of reply to Krishna's comments Pakistan's Deputy Permanent Representative Raza Bashir Tarar said: "Let me also make absolutely clear that Jammu and Kashmir is neither an integral part of India nor has it ever been."