NEW DELHI, May 1: India obliquely asked Pakistan on Thursday to drop its reported move to raise the Kashmir issue during its presidency of the UN Security Council, saying the measure would not be consistent with the offer of friendship that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made to Islamabad.
“It is for Pakistan to decide whether raising the Jammu and Kashmir issue in the Security Council is compatible with extending the hand of friendship,” a foreign ministry spokesman said in response to a question.
The spokesman denied that Vajpayee’s offer of friendship he made in Kashmir came under pressure from the United States. “India does not work under pressure on these issues and India does not accept pressures,” he said.
“We have our foreign policy, we have our concerns. We are quite prepared to meet them. I think the presumption of pressures should be discounted once and for all,” the spokesman said.
In separate remarks, junior foreign minister Digvijay Singh said that despite peace overtures that another promise by Pakistan to end “cross-border terrorism” in Jammu and Kashmir had no meaning and asserted that Islamabad has to stop it permanently and “not in inches.”
“A credible promise will have no meaning. Cross-border terrorism has to be stopped...we don’t want it done in inches. We want Pakistan to stop it,” Mr Singh said in a programme on Sab TV.
The minister was asked whether a credible promise from Pakistan on this issue and brought by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage visiting the Sub-continent in the coming week, would pave the way for resumption of dialogue.
He recalled that President Pervez Musharraf had made a commitment to the international community in this regard last year but “terrorist acts” had not stopped.
The minister said Pakistan would only be a “side issue” in the talks between Armitage and Indian leaders. “We are not Pak- centric. Pakistan is a problem and we recognise that.”
The foreign ministry spokesman responded to a query on the US State Department’s report on global terrorism in which it has reportedly said that extremist violence in Jammu and Kashmir came from across the border, the spokesman said: “It just confirms what has been evident to us for a long time and we have always believed to be true that cross-border terrorism has been fuelled from across the Line of Control. It contradicts Pakistan’s claims on the contrary.”
“And this is where the international community has not met with as much success as it should have,” he said.
Asked about Pakistan Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s offer to visit India, the spokesman said: “If we have something officially then we will respond.”
Referring to Jamali’s telephonic talk with Vajpayee on April 28, he said: “The issue of our prime minister going to Pakistan or Pakistan prime minister coming to India was mentioned in that conversation in a very general way.
“And when the two prime ministers were talking, this issue was not pursued by either side beyond mentioning it in a general way.”
Replying to questions, the spokesman said: “Our prime minister has made gestures of friendship. His statements have indicated the paths to peace and friendship between two countries. It is for Pakistan to decide how to respond.”
