September 30, 2003	Tuesday	Sha’aban 3, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 29: Pakistan on Monday rejected as baseless a recent public statement by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan alleging that there had been large incursions of anti-Karzai elements into Afghanistan from across Pakistan.

Mr Masood Khan, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, also contested that all Taliban could be dubbed as terrorists and emphasized that many of them were students getting education in Pakistan.

He described India as being “bloody-minded” in blocking Pakistan’s re-entry into the Commonwealth, abusing the “accepted provision of consensus” and using it as a veto”.

Expressing Pakistan’s strong resentment at the Commonwealth’s decision, the spokesman also accused the organization’s foreign ministers committee of changing goal-posts and interfering in the country’s internal affairs by pronouncing on the LFO. He stressed that the government-opposition dialogue had not deadlocked and stalled, and talks were continuing.

Mr Masood Khan asserted that it was not India’s influence or its position in the world community which swayed the decision on the Commonwealth issue. It was the provision of “consensus” which enabled New Delhi to annul the majority’s will by turning consensus into a virtual veto. India had employed the same consensus provision because of its “inimical mindset” to block Pakistan’s acceptance of its membership application to Association of South-east Asian Nations, he said.

Asked whether Sunday night’s statement by Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali on prospects of a resumption of dialogue with India differed in “emphasis” with President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s view that India should come to the talks without further delay, the spokesman said there were no differences on the issue between the prime minister and the president and the government spoke with one voice.

Asked about India’s desire to be accepted by the United Nations as a permanent member of its Security Council, the spokesman promptly rejected the claim, saying that India, which had repeatedly refused to accept Security Council’s resolutions, could never be a permanent member with the power to veto international decisions.

In reply to a question, the spokesman said Pakistan hoped that the US president and his government would be fully attentive to Islamabad’s concerns about the evolving military imbalance in conventional arms because of India’s massive arms acquisitions and that Washington would help to redress the imbalance in South Asia.

He confirmed that US Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage and another senior US official would arrive here on Oct 2 for a visit ending Oct 4. No details were given.

The spokesman said a Malaysian team of investigators was due to come to Pakistan and join the proceedings against foreign students most of them being Malaysian, for suspected Al Qaeda links, pending deportation of the suspect students to their home countries Indonesia and Malaysia.

AFP adds: “Mr Vajpayee extended his so-called hand of friendship but it hasn’t reached Islamabad. It is there in Delhi,” Mr Khan said, referring to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s April offer of dialogue with Pakistan.

“For the peace process to start there has to be a robust engagement and that’s absent,” he said.

“What has been coming from Delhi is negative statements, anti-Pakistan statements, this is not how you start a peace process,” the spokesman said.