NEW DELHI, June 23: The training of militants in Pakistan and their infiltration into India still continued, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in an interview released on Sunday.
“There has been no change in Pakistan’s policy so far as cross-border infiltration is concerned. Every day we are getting reports that infiltration continues unabated,” Vajpayee said in the interview in the July 1 issue of Newsweek magazine.
A senior official in Vajpayee’s office said the prime minister was interviewed more than a week ago.
On Thursday, Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said in Srinagar that the infiltration of rebels had nearly ended.
NO IMMEDIATE TROOP PULL BACK: Vajpayee said India would pull back it troops only after seeing the ground situation and that “it will take some time.”
“There are 50 to 70 terrorist-training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and in Pakistan,” he told Newsweek.
The prime minister said India and Pakistan had been close to war over the issue.
“It was a touch-and-go affair...I did not rule out the possibility of war. Until the last minute we were hoping that wiser counsels would prevail.”
Vajpayee said when the cross-border violence ends, “India will be ready to have talks with Pakistan and discuss all issues, including Jammu and Kashmir”.
For his part, President Pervez Musharraf told Newsweek that Islamabad is not ready to accept the military ceasefire line in Kashmir as the international border.
He also said Pakistan may boost its military capabilities, citing increases by India in defence spending. “If they tilt the conventional balance, we shall have to restore it.”
Vajpayee said the United States should be a facilitator between Indian and Pakistan and not a mediator. India is against the involvement of a third party to resolve the Kashmir dispute.
But Musharraf said the United States was the only country which could persuade India to start a dialogue as “bilateralism hasn’t worked.”—Reuters
