UNITED NATIONS, July13: Charging that a UN report on children was skewed on facts and went beyond the mandate, Pakistan has condemned “in the strongest possible terms any use of children by extremists or any other group to promote their nihilistic agenda and is taking appropriate action to stop such practices”.

Speaking at a debate in the UN Security Council on “Children's in armed Conflict”, Ambassador Hussain Haroon said Pakistan was taking action to stop any use of children by extremists groups to promote their “nihilistic” agenda.

Taking strong exception to an “unwarranted” information in the UN report’s section on the situation in the country, he said Pakistan took pride in being actively involved in the protection and promotion of children’s rights at all levels.

Over the years, he said the Security Council’s resolutions and the secretary-general’s report had begun to stretch the child-protection mandate to cover matters that did not directly threaten international peace and security and called for an end to this practice.

The position taken by Pakistan on the report, which is written for the secretary-general by his Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy, was supported by a number of countries, including Russia.

There was no justification for listing situations in countries such as Pakistan, which could not be considered conflict situations, Russian Ambassador Alexander Pankin said, adding that the time had come to address seriously such lapses in the report.

The Pakistan envoy said today’s report contained ‘unwarranted’ and ‘misleading’ information about Pakistan to the effect that it gave undeserved respectability to terrorists and criminals, which was terribly unfortunate.

“It was, therefore, time to end the ambiguity so we can comprehend where we all stand, so we can do the good work that we have before us,” he said, expressing hope that future reports would be grounded in objectivity and correspond squarely with the mandate given by the council.