ISLAMABAD, Oct 5: Pakistan on Friday said the US had not provided any specific operational plan, but made it clear the sentiment was that only those responsible for terrorism should be targeted and care should be exercised to ensure that innocent people didn’t suffer.
This was stated by Foreign Office spokesman Riaz Muhammad Khan in reply to a question at the daily briefing.
The spokesman said that Indian external affairs minister Jaswant Singh’s remarks that Islamabad was part of the problem of terrorism and not part of a solution were “no surprise”.
“It is usual for them (Indian officials) to say such things,” he said in reply to a question. Mr Singh had made the remarks to the BBC in the context of the Kashmir freedom struggle which India blamed on Pakistan.
He said the struggle in held Kashmir was not terrorism but a fight for the right of self-determination which had been going on for 54 years. Not only the international community recognized it as such but wanted it to be resolved urgently through negotiations.
Pakistan, he said, was no den of terrorists, as alleged by India, but a victim of terrorism in the 1980s for supporting the anti-Soviet struggle in bordering Afghanistan and in the 1990s for supporting the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle.—Agencies
