September 10, 2002	Tuesday	Rajab 2, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 9: Pakistan said on Monday that any talks to resolve the Kashmir dispute have to be held between the governments of India and Pakistan with the participation of the recognized Kashmiri leaders.

“We are a party to the dispute. UN resolutions talk about India and Pakistan. But obviously Kashmiris will have to be involved and the modus operandi or details about this can be settled once the dialogue starts,” Foreign Office spokesman Hasan Akhtar said at his weekly press briefing.

Asked if the Kashmir committees of both the countries may discuss settlement of the dispute, Mr Khan said: “Dialogue has to be held at the official level between India and Pakistan.

The spokesman said the Kashmir issue was now on international agenda and was being discussed by the international community with a feeling that efforts should be made for its resolution.

Reiterating that Islamabad always stood for the resolution of the Kashmir issue through dialogue and negotiations, the spokesman hoped that emerging international efforts towards resolving the long-standing dispute would succeed in persuading India to give up its intransigence.

The spokesman said during his meetings in New York with President George Bush and other world leaders, President Pervez Musharraf would focus on Kashmir situation and Pakistan’s relations with India in the context of the present South Asia military confrontation and high state of tension.

Aziz Khan described the reports emanating from the United States, including the one surmising about turning the Line of Control into permanent border, as mere speculation. He said in his meeting with President Bush, President Musharraf would discuss bilateral issues, situation in Kashmir and all other important regional and international issues.

Replying to questions about the last Sunday’s meetings in New Delhi between a delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and Ram Jethmalani, who heads the Indian Kashmir committee, the spokesman said Islamabad had taken note of it and supported its declaration calling for a peaceful negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue as desirable.

He welcomed the visit to Pakistan by a delegation of the APHC leaders as proposed in the Delhi meeting, saying that Islamabad always desired such visits, but it was the Indian government which stood in its way.

The spokesman said he had no definite information on a press report saying that the government-sponsored Kashmir committee, headed by former AJK prime minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan, had designated known political leader Ajmal Khattak as its emissary to hold talks in Delhi with the Jethmalani Kashmir committee.

The spokesman regarded as totally “fictitious and baseless” a news report emanating from foreign sources, claiming that a formidable Al Qaeda-Taliban network had been established in Karachi and declared that Pakistan as a member of international coalition fighting terrorism in Afghanistan remained fully vigilant and alert to frustrate terrorists’ attempts to sneaking into Pakistan or to find safe heaven on its soil. Pakistan would continue to play its role in the anti-terrorism campaign against Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants so long as it was necessary to continue the fight against terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere.