NEW DELHI, July 3: India’s new foreign minister Yashwant Sinha said on Wednesday it was difficult to trust President Pervez Musharraf, a fear not helped by what he said was a recent increase in the infiltration of militants into Kashmir from across the LoC.
Sinha’s remarks, actually his first comment on Pakistan since he swapped his finance minister’s job with Jaswant Singh, coincided with the visit of British Defence Minister Geoffrey Hoon who himself expressed worries over the infiltration issue.
The new external affairs minister was a key member of the Indian think-tank during last year’s Agra summit. He told reporters on Wednesday that India needs to be “very, very careful” in its dealings with Gen Musharraf, as he charged the military ruler with reneging on his pledge to rein in infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir.
“We need to be very, very careful in our dealings with Gen Musharraf,” Sinha said. “He tried to backtrack from his assurance not once but three to four times.” It was not clear what examples of betrayal Sinha would have been speaking of.
But he did say: “Incidents in the past two to three days have proved that the situation has gone back to same as before May 24” when Gen Musharraf had promised not to allow “export of terrorism from Pakistani soil”.
Sinha’s observations came also as the United States urged both India and Pakistan to continue to refrain from “provocative actions” and said it was important for both sides to carry out steps to further reduce tensions.
Tensions have eased somewhat “but we still have armies deployed along a common border and the Line of Control. So both sides need to work to ease the tensions and to take further steps,” US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Tuesday.
In New Delhi, British Defence Minister Hoon, emerging from talks with his Indian counterpart George Fernandes, told reporters that infiltration across the Line of Control remained a key concern.
“Controlling infiltration across the LoC remains a matter of great concern to Britain and this is something I emphasized on the Government of Pakistan”, Mr Hoon said after arriving from talks in Islamabad with President Pervez Musharraf and others.
Mr Hoon, heading a high-level defence delegation on a two-day visit to New Delhi, made it clear that London will not tolerate raising of funds on its soil for use of terrorism abroad, news reports said.
He declared that the British Government had specifically changed its laws to arm the police and authorities with powers to deal with organizations indulging in such fund-raising
The proposed sale of British advanced jet trainer hawk to India was also believed to have been discussed during the meeting between Hoon and Fernandes, news reports said.
Meanwhile, a senior Indian columnist said on Wednesday that the foreign secretaries of Indian and Pakistan may meet soon.
While the just retired foreign secretary Chokila Iyer did not get the opportunity to engage in a substantive dialogue with her Pakistan counterpart — “Mr Kanwal Sibal hopefully will get this opportunity — it will then mean an engagement with an Indian hand in Islamabad, Riaz Khokhar,” K.K. Katyal wrote in The Hindu.
Diplomats however, were not so sanguine and said India had not as yet even asked for the agreement for its new high commissioner designate to Islamabad for talks beginning to look likely soon.
