November 11, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 15, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

NEW DELHI, Nov 10: India has ruled out a bilateral call on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee proposed by Information Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed who said on Monday that he was carrying an oral message of peace from Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali.

Mr Ahmed told reporters that he was now hoping to catch a moment with Mr Vajpayee when he would meet a cluster of ministers from Saarc countries on Tuesday. Mr Vajpayee would inaugurate a Saarc information ministers’ conference.

Earlier on Monday, Mr Vajpayee presided over a meeting of select education ministers convened by Unesco to address the issue of universal education. The meeting was attended by Education Minister Zubaida Jalal, but she too was unable to meet Mr Vajpayee “because he did not stay for tea,” she said.

Mr Ahmed said Pakistan would favourably consider an Indian proposal to import Indian films provided India too accepted the principle of showing Pakistani films, documentaries and TV programmes.

The free movement of Indian journalists in Pakistan is likely to be brought up by Indian Information Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad during the Saarc conference.

Mr Ahmed said he was expecting to meet Kashmiri leaders during his stay but had been told that some of them were unwell, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Mr Geelani’s family sources said he might yet visit Delhi for the talks, if he was not “gated”, as often happened with him, when Indian authorities periodically put him under house arrest.

APP adds: Talking to newsmen at the Indira Gandhi international airport, Mr Ahmed emphasized that Pakistan would continue its efforts for peace and that Islamabad would not join any arms race.

Answering a question about Sunday’s missile test by India, he said it was not necessary for Pakistan to do what India was doing.

Mr Ahmed expressed the confidence that the conference would pave the way for the Saarc summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in January.