India summons Iranian envoy over Kashmir remarks

 dpa, 19 November 2010 – New Delhi – India on Friday expressed its deep disappointment to Iran over remarks on Kashmir that it said impinged on its territorial integrity, diplomatic sources said.
In a recent address to hajj pilgrims in Tehran, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said it was the duty of the Muslim elite to assist Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Kashmir.
 
’Today, the major duties of the elite of the Islamic world is to … sympathize and provide assistance to the nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Kashmir, to engage in struggle and resistance against the aggressions of the United States and the Zionist regime [Israel], to safeguard the solidarity of Muslims,’ Khamenei said, according to a statement posted on his website Monday.
YK Sinha, India’s Ministry of External Affairs joint secretary, called the Iranian charge d’affaires in New Delhi, Reza Alaei, to his office and conveyed the Indian government’s disappointment over the remarks, sources said.
Reza was told India regretted that Iran had questioned its territorial integrity.
India also for the first time abstained Wednesday from voting on a United Nations resolution on human rights violations in Iran, the PTI news agency reported.
In the past, India has always voted against similar resolutions. ’Our decision on the vote was made after due deliberation,’ PTI quoted an unnamed Indian External Affairs Ministry official as saying.
 
While 80 countries voted in favour of the resolution, 44 voted against it and 57 countries abstained.
The disputed Muslim-majority Kashmir region is claimed in entirety by both India and neighbouring Pakistan.
It is currently divided into two parts, one administered by India and the other by Pakistan