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| 23 March 2004 | Tuesday | 01 Safar 1425 |
Pakistan rejects US envoy's remarks
ISLAMABAD, March 22: Pakistan on Monday angrily rejected comments by the US ambassador to Afghanistan that senior members of the ousted Taliban were hiding in Pakistan.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, in comments published at the weekend, said several key Taliban figures, as well as some al Qaeda leaders, were on the Pakistani side of the border.
"Ambassador Khalilzad is clearly out of his depth. He should desist from making such statements that can only cause misunderstandings," Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan told a news conference.
"If the ambassador has any specific information or intelligence, he should have shared it with us instead of making these generalised insinuations through the media," he said.
WANA OPERATION: In reply to a question about Wana operation at the press briefing, the spokesman said Pakistan enjoyed support of the six of the seven South Waziristan agencies in the current operation against the elimination of outlawed militants and their collaborators by the army which would be carried on until the threat of terrorism to Pakistan was removed, Hassan Akhtar adds.
The spokesman was joined at his weekly press briefing by ISPR Director-General Major-General Shaukat Sultan to field questions exclusively about the Wana operation.
Gen Sultan said that Wana operation had not yet ended and the army had stopped action for a while to allow the agency elders to decide whether they wanted to surrender arms and militancy as they had offered the other day.
In reply to a question about implications of the status of a "major non-NATO ally" given to Pakistan last week by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Mr Khan replied that as partner in Western military coalition waging war on terror in Afghanistan, Pakistan had been collaborating in efforts to combat and eliminate terrorism.
"It would determine its response to any calls made on it on the basis of situation-to-situation in its proposed status as a major non-NATO ally," he said.
He denied that the US favour to confer the major non-NATO ally status on Islamabad was a "reward" for the action against Dr A.Q. Khan and several other nuclear scientists accused of nuclear proliferation.
About civilian casualties in the Wana operation, Gen Sultan held out an assurance that army was taking extreme care to avoid any collateral and innocent civilian casualties.
"However, in the given situation at times it is not possible to differentiate between wanted persons and civilians. It is a warfare which makes it difficult to avoid any collateral accidents."
In reply to a Chinese correspondent's question about Taiwan, the spokesman emphatically observed that Pakistan was firmly committed to One-China policy and rejected the so-called referendum in Taiwan.
"We strongly oppose any attempt at undermining this principle of One-China and heighten tension in the region," he added. The spokesman denied if there was any "hidden agenda" in Pakistan's assuming the non-NATO ally status and said it was a recognition of US-Pakistan close and solid relations in various fields and at military-to-military level.
Mr Khan said that the US-Pakistan relations stretched over five decades although with many ups and downs, but they had extended to various fields of Pakistan's economic, social, eduational and military training activites besides sale of military hardware.
VIETNAM PRESIDENT: The spokesman said that the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Mr Tran Duc Luong, would pay the first state visit to Pakistan from March 24 to 27, at the invitation of President Gen Pervez Musharraf, Hasan Akhtar adds.
The visit would strengthen bilateral relations between the two states, the spokesman said. The spokesman said that the Vietnamese President would be accompanied by ministers of foreign affairs, trade and science and technology as well as top dignitaries and a strong business delegation.
The visit, he said, would constitute a major milestone to further comprehensive partnership for peace and development between the two countries. During his stay in the capital, the Vietnam President will hold talks on Wednesday and Thursday with President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali while the chairman of Senate, the Speaker of the National Assembly and Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz would separately meet the Vietnamese President.
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