India Makes 'Strong Demarche' Against Erdogan's Remarks On Kashmir - Foreign Ministry

India Makes 'Strong Demarche' Against Erdogan's Remarks on Kashmir - Foreign Ministry

The Indian Foreign Ministry has issued an official protest in response to Ankara following the recent comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the situation in the Jammu & Kashmir region, the ministry's spokesman, Raveesh Kuma, said on Monday

NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th February, 2020) The Indian Foreign Ministry has issued an official protest in response to Ankara following the recent comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the situation in the Jammu & Kashmir region, the ministry's spokesman, Raveesh Kuma, said on Monday.

During his two-day visit to Pakistan last week, President Erdogan compared the developments in Kashmir with his country's resistance to the incursion by the Allied powers during World War I.

"India has made a strong demarche with the Turkish Government on the remarks made by President Erdogan on the Indian Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir during his recent visit to Islamabad... The demarche was made by Secretary (West) [Vikas Swarup] to the Ambassador of Turkey in New Delhi earlier today," Kumar said.

The spokesperson pushed against Erdogan's comments, calling them undiplomatic and historically illiterate.

"These remarks reflect neither an understanding of history nor of the conduct of diplomacy. They distort events of the past to advance a narrow minded view of the present," he stated.

Decades-long tensions in the region mounted in August when New Delhi revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution, stripping the state of Jammu and Kashmir of its partial autonomy, before splitting it into union territories under the Federal government's control. Pakistan, which claims the Kashmir region and its citizens alongside India, has strongly condemned this decision.