First time since 2019, Turkey’s President Erdogan skips mention of Kashmir in UN speech

“We maintain our will to develop our relations with BRICS, which brings together emerging economies,” he said during the course of his speech at the 79th UN General Assembly in New York.

The founding members of BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – decided last year to expand the grouping. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and they became members from January 1, 2024. All members are expected to attend the BRICS leaders’ summit in Kazan, Russia, from October 22 to 24.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he expected Erdogan to attend the BRICS summit in Russia next month, after Turkey requested to join the group of emerging economies. Putin said he was due to meet Erdogan on October 23. If admitted, Turkey would become the first NATO member in the group.

For the last five years, Erdogan was the only head of state, apart from Pakistan’s, to have raised the issue of Kashmir at the UNGA.

In September 2019, Erdogan had talked about the “dispute over Kashmir” and “to ensure a safe future for the people of Kashmir, together with their Pakistani and Indian neighbours, the dispute must be resolved through dialogue on the basis of justice and fairness, rather than conflict”.

In his 2020 UNGA speech, he had said that “the Kashmir problem” which is also the key to the stability of the peace of South Asia, still awaits a solution, and Turkey is in favour of a resolution within the framework of the UN resolutions “in line with the expectations of the people of Kashmir”.

Speaking at the UNGA in 2021, Erdogan said Turkey maintains its stance in favour of solving the “ongoing problem in Kashmir” for 74 years, through “dialogue between the parties and within the framework of relevant United Nations resolutions”.

In the 2022 speech, he had mentioned India, and said that he regrets that peace and cooperation between India and Pakistan has still not yet been established, despite 75 years following their independence. “We hope that a just and lasting peace, and tranquillity will be reached in Kashmir,” he had said, without mentioning the UN resolutions.

Last year, in 2023, he had said that the establishment of a “just and lasting peace in Kashmir through dialogue and cooperation between India and Pakistan” will pave the way for regional serenity, stability and prosperity in South Asia, and Turkey will continue to support the steps to be taken in this direction. This was the second year when he had dropped the reference to the UN resolutions.

Addressing the 79th session of the UNGA Tuesday, Erdogan said: “Not only children are dying in Gaza; the United Nations system is also dying, the truth is dying, the values that the west claims to defend are dying, the hopes of humanity to live in a fairer world are dying one by one.

Recalling that the United Nations was established to maintain international peace and security after the Second World War, during which millions of people lost their lives, Erdogan said: “With the establishment of the United Nations, expectations for global stability, peace and justice blossomed again, and hopes for peace revived. However, we observe with regret that in recent years, the United Nations is struggling to fulfil its founding mission and is gradually turning into a dysfunctional, unwieldy and inert structure. We need the values represented by the maxim ‘The world is bigger than five’, more and more nowadays.”

“We witness that international peace and security are too important to be left to the arbitrariness of the ‘privileged five’,” he said.

“We are deepening our engagement with regional organisations, such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association, the Pacific Islands Forum and particularly ASEAN. We maintain our will to develop our relations with BRICS, which brings together emerging economies. We share a deep-rooted history with the Central Asian countries; we further strengthen our cooperation on bilateral and multilateral grounds,” Erdogan said.

India is a member of both the Indian Ocean Rim Association and BRICS grouping.