Islamabad rejects Kabul allegation: Support to Taliban
By Hasan Akhtar
ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: Pakistan rejected on Monday Afghan foreign minister’s allegations that Islamabad was supporting Taliban’s regrouping, and asked Afghanistan to cooperate, and not quarrel, in the fight against terrorism.
Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan expressed his dismay over accusations hurled by Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah during his recent visit to Washington and said: “It is not fitting for the Afghan foreign minister to go to Washington... and bad-mouth and issue negative statements against us.”
Mr Khan said Pakistan and Afghanistan were allies, friends and neighbours and engaged together in the war on terror and stressed the two sides must coordinate their positions and share intelligence.
“We must cooperate. Don’t quarrel with a firefighter, what we should do is to put out the blazing, raging fire that is there,” he added.
The spokesman pointed out that the problems confronting Afghanistan were “warlordism, factional fighting, narcotics production and trafficking besides a weak monitoring on their side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.”
He said Pakistan in its effort to extend assistance to Afghanistan had deployed 70,000 troops along their common border to check terrorists’ movement and employed a mobile and agile vigilance which had produced excellent results in fight against terrorism.
AVIATION TALKS: The spokesman said Pakistan and India would be holding talks on the restoration of air links on December 1 and 2. “We shall go there with an open mind. Our position on overflights remains unchanged and will try to convince them.”
UN RESOLUTIONS: The spokesman said the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir continued to stay legally valid instruments unless the world body came up with a new resolution on the dispute.
The spokesman dismissed a recent statement of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that the UN resolutions had become obsolete, and said: “The UN resolutions are valid and operative and have a legal basis and reflect the will of the international community.”
He said that President Pervez Musharraf had been proposing to India a comprehensive framework of talks which could serve as a roadmap for peace in South Asia.
The spokesman said that if India was sincere in peace in the region and settlement of the Kashmir dispute, it should resume talks with Pakistan. “But the problem is that India is not ready for the talks,” he added.
When asked what would happen if Mr Vajpayee, who has not as yet personally accepted participation in the 12th Saarc summit to be held in Islamabad in the first week of January, failed to turn up at the last moment, the spokesman said there would be no summit meeting.
REPRESSION IN KASHMIR: The spokesman maintained that in the absence of dialogue between Pakistan and India, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir had become worse with a rise in repression of the population and heavy gun firing into Azad Kashmir from across the Line of Control.
He claimed that the youth in large numbers were forced to flee their homes and cross over the LoC where they joined freedom fighters. For some time even children and women in Azad Kashmir border areas had been targeted by dropping toy bombs and attractive parcels which was in violation of the Geneva conventions.
Answering another question, Mr Khan said the government decision in respect of sending troops as “peacekeepers” in Iraq remained unaltered.
BAN ON OUTFITS: The spokesman said the ban on three groups accused of conducting clandestine activities across the country was imposed purely in the national interest and the government had not been pressured by the United States or any other external influence.
“I have been told by the relevant officials that everything is on course and the operation will be completed in 72 hours,” he said and added the source of terror-financing, if any, would also be choked.
In reply to a question, the spokesman did not rule out the possibility of freezing their accounts.
Commenting on reports of India setting up military bases in Tajikistan, the spokesman said Tajik officials had denied that India had been offered to establish its military base in Tajikistan.
Pakistan ambassador was assured by an adviser to the Tajik president and separately by a spokesman for the Tajik defence ministry that no military base had been offered to India in their country.
