00:00 On Saturday, January 13, the Minister of External Affairs officially protested the objectionable
00:06 visit of the British High Commissioner in Islamabad to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on
00:12 January 10, 2024.
00:15 The statement strongly emphasized that such impringement of India's sovereignty and territorial
00:20 integrity is unacceptable.
00:23 Additionally, it was mentioned that the Foreign Secretary has launched a strong protest with
00:28 the British High Commissioner in India regarding this infringement.
00:33 The statement emphatically asserts that the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and
00:38 Ladakh are, have been and shall always remain an integral part of India.
00:44 This declaration comes in response to the visit of the UK High Commissioner to Pakistan,
00:48 Jane Marriott, to Mirpur in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) on January 10.
00:56 According to reports from Pakistani media, Jane Marriott, the first woman British High
01:00 Commissioner to Pakistan, defended her visit to Mirpur, citing that 70 per cent of British-Pakistani
01:07 routes are from Mirpur.
01:09 The MEA had issued a similar protest after US Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Bloom had
01:15 visited POK's Muzaffarabad in October last year.
01:18 "We would expect the international community to respect our sovereignty and territorial
01:24 integrity and the areas of POK as we consider the entire territory as an integral part of
01:30 India," the MEA had said.
01:34 In her statement, Bloom had termed Muzaffarabad as part of AJK, Azad Kashmir, which led India
01:40 to raise the issue with the US.
01:43 In December, images of the US envoy interacting with the residents of Gilgit-Baltistan in
01:49 Pakistan-occupied Kashmir also caught attention.
01:52 At that time, MEA spokesperson Arundhati Bakshi expressed India's objections to the visit
01:58 and meetings in POK by the US envoy and this stance has been communicated accordingly.
02:09 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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