The Hindu : 'Pak. for SAARC observers on Kashmir incidents'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2003

International

International - India & World

'Pak. for SAARC observers on Kashmir incidents'

By V.S. Sambandan

COLOMBO Sept. 15. The Pakistan Foreign Minister, Kurshid Mahmud Kasuri, said today that his country was prepared to accept observers from the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) to determine the nature of the incidents in Kashmir and further pressed the case for the resumption of "uninterrupted and uninterruptible" talks with India.

"We are prepared to accept SAARC observers on both sides of the Line of Control and let them decide. Why should India be in a position to be the accuser, prosecutor and the judge? That position is untenable and unacceptable between nations which wish to conduct their relations on the basis of sovereign equality," Mr. Kasuri told the Foreign Correspondents' Association of Sri Lanka. The SAARC observer groups, he said, could determine if the incidents inside Kashmir were "largely indigenous or staged from outside".

Mr. Kasuri is in Sri Lanka to invite the President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, for the 12th SAARC Summit, to be held in Pakistan early next year.

While the SAARC charter excludes politically contentious issues that are bilateral in nature, Pakistan has been making the case for widening the ambit of the regional grouping to address such concerns.

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'Pak. for SAARC observers on Kashmir incidents'