Wednesday, Sep 24, 2003
Wednesday, Sep 24, 2003 |
| International | ||||
|
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary | International
-
India & World
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
The Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, was one of the speakers at the conference, organised by the International Peace Academy, which was attended by the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and leaders or Foreign Ministers of several countries, including France, Russia, Canada, Brazil, Indonesia and Israel. Officials of the United States stayed out of the proceedings and the country was represented by the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar. "Well it is not necessary for us to be present at every conference anywhere in the world on the issue of terrorism; and also we have to look at what company we keep," Mr. Sibal said and added "...since you raised the subject, I did see the speech made by Gen. Musharraf." Gen. Musharraf's observations on the broad nature of terrorism aside, the Pakistan President did have his standard comments on Kashmir, in the context of State-sponsored terrorism and trying to impress the international community to pressure India to "end its repression in Kashmir and resume a dialogue with Pakistan". Arguing that equating freedom struggle with terrorism was a "travesty", Gen. Musharraf linked Kashmir and East Timor. "The United Nations must promote a solution for Kashmir — as it did for East Timor — on the basis of U.N. resolutions...We are ready for dialogue. Now it is India's call. It should respond positively, Gen. Musharraf said. Mr. Sibal said that Gen. Musharraf's statements were against the spirit of the initiatives taken by the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and, in the process, clouded the atmosphere for improvement in bilateral relations. He called on Islamabad to get over its "annual itch" on Kashmir. "Before the annual U.N. pilgrimage, it would be a good idea for the Pakistani leadership to do some fasting when it comes to pronouncements on Kashmir," Mr. Sibal said. India also took objection to Gen. Musharraf's observation that for all the steps taken by Islamabad to improve relations, there had been a "zero return". "If there has been zero return, the problem is that because there has been zero investment by Pakistan. It has exhausted all its capital in promoting terrorism and what they should be getting are negative returns," Mr. Sibal remarked. On Gen. Musharraf's statement that he would involve the U.N. and the U.S. to resolve the Kashmir dispute, Mr. Sibal said: "Pakistan controls neither the U.N. nor the U.S. So I don't know what the threat means." Mr. Sibal's response to Gen. Musharraf's various statements in New York, including at the seminar on terrorism, came when he was briefing Indian media persons on the day's meetings of the Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister. Mr. Vajpayee called on the Nigerian President and discussed, among other things, the recently-concluded Ministerial at Cancun and the upcoming CHOGM in Abuja. According to Mr. Sibal, the two leaders talked about the reasons of the failure of the Cancun meeting; taking stock of the post-Cancun phase and generally the idea that it was good for the developing countries to stay united in negotiations. On Tuesday, Mr. Vajpayee is scheduled to meet leaders from Sri Lanka, Portugal and Afghanistan.
Printer friendly
page
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
|
|
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | The Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | Home |
Copyright © 2003, The
Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu
|
