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ISLAMABAD, Oct 13: Pakistan said on Saturday that it is not part of all operations which the United States is carrying out from Indian Ocean, Central Asian States and some other places.
“We have no desire and do not want to be privy of all these operations. Pakistan has shared information with three-member US defence delegation about terrorist training camps which had visited soon after attacks on US,” Riaz Mohammad Khan, a spokesman for the Foreign Office told newsmen here.
He said the phase of sharing information is over long ago. We are not party to the present operations so “we have no interest in knowing the details of these operations.”
Answering a question about Pakistan’s policy after attacks on Afghanistan, the spokesman said Pakistan’s policy was based on very well known principle that we are against terrorism in all its manifestations. “This is immutable policy and we feel no reason to change it.”
He denied that Mulla Zaeef, the Afghan ambassador was carrying a message from Pakistan. However, he added that he might have found it necessary to visit Kandahar in this situation.
POWELL: The spokesman said focus on discussion during the visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell would be on the situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan-India relations and Kashmir.
“The focus of discussions will be on the Pakistan-India relations and Kashmir which is a dangerous source of tension not only between the two countries but also for the region,” Foreign Office spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan said in his daily briefings.
“This is an important visit at important juncture,” he said.
Referring to UN resolutions including those passed in 1998, the spokesman said the Kashmir issue needed to be addressed meaningfully. “That is what we want to convey.”
“We believe in de-escalation of tension. We invited Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh. But our position on Kashmir issue is based on UN resolutions,” he said.
The solution of this long-standing problem should be in accordance with the wishes of Kashmiri people as enshrined in the UN resolutions.
“The disregard of UN resolutions knocks out the moral basis of international legal structure,” he added.
When asked to characterize the current level of tension between India and Pakistan, he said it was primarily related to repression of Indian forces in the occupied Kashmir.
He said lately the Indian forces had stepped up their operations against the freedom struggle launched by the Kashmiri people. “The repression of Indian forces agitates public opinion in Pakistan,” he added.
JAISH-I-MOHAMMAD: The spokesman said there was a strong possibility of freezing accounts of Jaish-i-Muhammad and other organizations listed by the United States for their suspected links with Osama bin Laden.
“It is possible that the State Bank will issue a similar advisory as it had issued earlier for freezing of accounts of Al-Rashid Trust,” the spokesman said.
The Foreign Office through Pakistan mission in Washington has received some preliminary information about the listing of Jaish-i-Muhammad, a Lahore-based Rabita Trust and some other organizations allegedly involved in channelling funds to Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Earlier when the United States had included Al-Rashid Trust in the list of organizations allegedly funding Al-Qaeda network, State Bank had issued an advisory to all the commercial banks to freeze the accounts of the trust.
However, the FO spokesman had been maintaining that the US had been asked to provide some information with regard to Al-Rashid Trust’s alleged involvement in providing funds to the terrorist network.
MEDIA: The spokesman parried a question whether any information had been received about the Al-Rashid Trust, which had been undertaking considerable charity work for Kashmiri and Afghan refugees.
The spokesman sounded a warning to the international media organizations whose representatives were keen to cross over to Afghanistan.
The government, he said, had decided to take action against those media organizations whose representatives tried to cross into Afghanistan without valid travel documents.
Explaining the actions which the government might take against such journalists, he said their visas could be cancelled and they would be asked to leave Pakistan.
When asked why the government was not allowing any journalist to proceed to Afghanistan including even those who had valid Afghan visas, he said visa was not enough, their respective governments should also take their responsibility.
He advised the foreign journalists not to indulge in any adventurism. In some of the cases, he said, they had been contacted by different governments for the release of their journalists.
NO CLASHES: About the reported clashes between the Taliban and Pakistan Army, the Foreign Office spokesman said they had not heard any such report.
