Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif returned Kashmir to the centre of Pakistan’s case before the United Nations on Friday with a reminder aimed as much at the world body as at India.

“For eight decades, the Kashmiri people have waited for the United Nations to fulfil its solemn commitment of a free and impartial plebiscite,” he told the 81st UN General Assembly. Before leaving the subject, he called Kashmir Pakistan’s “jugular vein.”

Long before Pakistan’s present political parties existed, its leaders were arriving in New York with essentially the same complaint: the United Nations had taken up Kashmir, set out a route towards determining its future, and then watched the dispute survive war after war, government after government and generation after generation.

There is a fact easily lost in the annual India-Pakistan exchange at the UN. It was India that first brought the Kashmir situation to the Security Council, through a letter dated January 1, 1948. Pakistan answered the Indian complaint later that month. Security Council Resolution 47 followed on April 21, setting out a staged process involving restoration of peace, withdrawal and reduction of forces and a plebiscite.

Long before Pakistan’s present political parties existed, its leaders were arriving in New York with essentially the same complaint: the United Nations had taken up Kashmir, set out a route towards determining its future, and then watched the dispute survive war after war, government after government and generation after generation.

Long before Pakistan’s present political parties existed, its leaders were arriving in New York with essentially the same complaint: the United Nations had taken up Kashmir, set out a route towards determining its future, and then watched the dispute survive war after war, government after government and generation after generation.

Pakistan’s first great advocate on Kashmir at the United Nations was its foreign minister, Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan. Appearing before the Security Council in the opening months of 1948, Zafarullah pressed for a settlement built around a neutral administration and a plebiscite that would allow Kashmiris to determine whether the state should accede to India or Pakistan.

By December 1965, President Ayub Khan was telling the General........

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