GENEVA (AP) — Pakistan’s foreign minister has warned that India’s “illegal occupation” of Muslim-majority Kashmir could drive the two nuclear-armed countries “into an accidental war.”
Shah Mahmood Qureshi lashed out at Pakistan’s southeastern neighbor amid heightened tensions since Aug. 5, when India’s government changed the status of Indian-administered Kashmir — a region claimed by both countries.
At the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, Qureshi accused India of turning Kashmir “into the largest prison on this planet” and alleged that torture and rape were occurring in a region facing a shortage of medicines and a food crisis.
“I shudder to mention the word ‘genocide’ here, but I must,” he said. He alleged cases of rape and torture against Kashmiris, and food and medicine shortages.
Qureshi said Tuesday that the tensions cannot be resolved bilaterally.