'Unwarranted, unacceptable': India lodges strong protest over Erdogan’s Kashmir remarks

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (File Photo: AP)

India has registered a strong protest with the Turkish Ambassador over Turkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent remarks on Kashmir.

"We reject such objectionable comments on matters that are eternal to India. We have lodged a strong protest with the Turkish ambassador. Such unwarranted statements on India's territorial integrity and sovereignty are unacceptable," Randhir Jaiswal, Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, said in New Delhi on Friday.

The MEA Spokesperson reiterated that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and observed that it would have been better if the Turkish President would have called out Pakistan's policy of using cross-border terrorism against India, which remains the biggest threat to the people of Jammu and Kashmir instead.

#WATCH | On the issue of Trkiye President Erdogans recent comments over Kashmir, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal says, "We reject such objectionable comments on matters that are eternal to India. We have lodged a strong protest with the Turkish ambassador. Such unwarranted pic.twitter.com/QZvmEz9Ewc
ANI (@ANI) February 21, 2025

Erdogan, who was on a two-day visit to Pakistan last week, called for UN dialogue to address the Kashmir issue after holding talks with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

"The Kashmir issue should be addressed according to the UN resolution through dialogue and keeping in mind the aspirations of the people of Kashmir," Erdogan said. India has maintained that Kashmir is a bilateral issue and there was no ground to internationalise it.

"Our state and our nation, as in the past, stands in solidarity with our Kashmiri brothers today," he added.

India has consistently maintained that the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have and will always remain an integral part of India. Relations between India and Pakistan significantly deteriorated after India revoked Article 370 of the Constitution on August 5, 2019, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and reorganising it into two UTs.

Pakistan has often courted Türkiye to strengthen its Kashmir narrative. However, India has always raised strong objection to any remark of a similar nature seeking to internationalise the issue.