September 16, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 18, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 15: Pakistan on Monday said it regarded the growing US-India close relations as a window of opportunity which could help persuade New Delhi to cooperate with Islamabad in developing a working relationship for bringing peace and stability to the region.

Foreign ministry spokesman Masud Khan told his weekly news briefing that close relationship between the US and India was a “window of opportunity”.

Washington, he said, could do many things to persuade India to reduce repression in occupied Kashmir and develop a working relationship with Pakistan. The US, he elaborated, could use its “positive interests” and try to help bring peace and stability to the region.

He recalled that Pakistan had already condemned the Israeli decision to send Palestinian President Yasser Arafat into exile and stressed that now the declared Israeli intentions to kill the PLO leader was even “more condemnable and unpardonable”.

Answering a question, he said visits by the US officials such as the recent one by Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca to Delhi should not give Islamabad the jitters as such visits had been made periodically.

However, he said, if Ms Rocca chose not to take up with the Indian authorities the issue of human rights violations in occupied Kashmir by its forces then “they are making a glaring omission”.

Asked for Islamabad’s position on the row between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the spokesman said Tehran had informed the IAEA that it was ready to cooperate with the agency and Pakistan had said time and again that Iran had the right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Pakistan was watching the “evolving situation,” he added.

Referring to the statement about the establishment of a peacekeeping force in Jammu and Kashmir to curb “cross-border terrorism”, the spokesman said Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri had been misquoted, and dismissed the reported version of his informal talk with a cross-section of society in Kathmandu as inaccurate and inadequate.

In reply to a question, the spokesman said the foreign minister might visit Delhi next month to extend invitation for the Saarc summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in January. However, he added, that would depend on the kind of response he received from Delhi.

Answering yet another question, the spokesman said Pakistan was worried about the activities of Indian consulates in Afghanistan and urged Kabul to put an end to these activities.

APP adds: Pakistan and US would discuss legislative and administrative measures to fight “terrorism financing” during the visit of US Treasury Secretary John Snow, the spokesman said.

He confirmed the visit of the US official who was due in Islamabad this week.