India on Wednesday told the United Nations that Pakistan has undermined India’s territorial integrity for decades through the “explicit use of terrorism as a state policy”.

Minister in India’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations Srinivas Prasad was responding to Pakistan’s remarks on Jammu and Kashmir, PTI reported.

“Foreign occupation and the denial of fundamental rights, including the right to self-determination, exacerbate the sense of injustice among the occupied and the oppressed,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi told the High Level Forum on the Culture of Peace at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

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Citing a recent UN report on Kashmir, she added that “nowhere is this more apparent than in the pain and suffering” of the people in Kashmir and Palestine.

On June 14, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued its first report on the situation in Kashmir, detailing alleged human rights violations and abuses on both sides of the Line of Control. India has repeatedly rejected the report and called it biased.

On Wednesday, Prasad said: “A culture of peace is not just an abstract value or principle to be discussed and extolled in conferences, but needs to be actively built into global relationships between and among nation states. It rests on good neighbourliness and a respect for the territory and the governing systems and principles of other states.”

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He said it was it was ironic that Pakistan “has chosen to use this platform to yet again claim Indian territory under the guise of a supposed concern for ‘justice and self-determination’ by quoting a report that not a single member state had asked for or has supported”.

The Indian envoy reminded Pakistan that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will always remain so. “As a democracy, India has always abided by the choices of the people and will not allow this freedom to be undermined by terrorism and extremism,” Prasad added.