India stood isolated at the United Nations Security Council when it was the only country that did not vote in favour of a resolution establishing a “humanitarian carve out” to the asset freeze measures imposed by the UN sanctions regime.
The Security Council adopted resolution 2664 dated December 9, 2022 with 14 members of the Security Council voting in favour and one abstaining – India. The resolution seeks to exempt humanitarian aid from the UN sanctions that would facilitate the work of humanitarian organisations towards the delivery of basic human needs. The United States and Ireland as co-pen holders of the resolution had circulated the draft resolution earlier in the council under silence procedure that was broken by China and Russia and various rounds of negotiations took place during which India continued to make attempts to manipulate the discussions. Failing to achieve its objectives, India abstained by being the only country to do so on this resolution in what was yet another attempt to politicise the proceedings of the Council.
India has continued to misuse the platform of the UN Security Council for domestic politics agendas throughout its two year membership. It has made repeated attempts to use counter-terrorism issues for propaganda purposes with a singular obsession of maintaining a narrative against Pakistan that has zero listeners in the UN Security Council. India’s concern was not to allow a window of humanitarian help to the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) where it is resorting to massive repression under the guise of combatting terrorism. The latest abstention by India once again demonstrates the fact that India is not interested in working with the international community for joint global action on issues beyond its domestic national agendas.
