ISLAMABAD, May 5: Reiterating its commitment to a "composite dialogue" between India and Pakistan, the Foreign Office on Wednesday expressed the hope that New Delhi would demonstrate statesmanship and engage constructively and substantially in the dialogue
to ascertain the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Spokesman Masood Khan said at a weekly press briefing that the Indian national elections being held since early 1950s, could never be a substitute for the popular demand of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to their right to self-determination.
It was precisely for this reason, the spokesman emphasised, that the two countries accepted to hold a bilateral dialogue to resolve the dispute without which there could not be peace and security between them. Dialogue, he said, was important to look at all aspects of the dispute in order to ascertain the wishes of India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir.
Masood Khan described the UN Security Council's special session during the third week of May under the chairmanship of Pakistan, in its capacity as the UNSC president for the current month, as the "highlight" for the council's deliberation on the proposed UN peacekeeping role in the worsening Iraq situation.
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri is due to preside over the council session beginning on May 17.
Although Islamabad has not yet been approached by the UN for participation in the proposed UN peacekeeping force, according to official sources it has been under US pressure to send troops for Iraq while the UN has sought Pakistani troops for protecting UN premises when it is established in Iraq.
However, no decision on the issues has been taken so far by the government which is keeping a close watch on the worsening Iraqi situation and getting ready to play a key diplomatic role in bringing calm, peace and security to the conflict-ridden country.
Responding to questions of media persons, the spokesman defended Pakistan's credential to serve on the UN human rights commission, saying that the country's environment in relation to human rights today was good and the president and the prime minister had been striving to create general awareness about human rights in Pakistan with the introduction of assemblies and the general elections.
Pakistan, which got re-elected by 43 votes by the 54-member UN Economic and Social Council in New York on Tuesday, has been an active member of the Human Rights Commission for decades.
It has contributed to the protection and promotion of human rights in terms of standard setting and implementation of UN resolutions on human rights. Islamabad has also worked for the OIC and in the Third World towards the same objective, a foreign office statement said.
Rejecting occasional criticism by some foreign official quarters of Pakistan army's role in South Waziristan and other tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border against terrorists suspected to be hiding there, the spokesman asserted.
That the government's two-track strategy was making good progress in contributing to the war on terrorism and was second to none. Pakistan had devised a political and an operational track as an inevitable mechanism to flush out terrorists from the tribal areas, he said.
Mr Masood Khan said that Pakistan and India had succeeded in resolving operational glitches in running the Muzaffarabad- Srinagar bus service and hoped that the twice-postponed meeting to finalize the bus service arrangement would be held soon.
He said he also believed that the recent talks between relevant departments in Islamabad and Washington on the release and repatriation of Pakistani detainees under the United States control, had almost cleared the way for early release and transfer of the bulk of some 40 Pakistani detainees to the country. They would, however, undergo a period of "transition" here.
The spokesman said Pakistan had been seeking the Macedonian authorities' help and cooperation to establish the identity of seven Pakistani immigrants brutally killed by Macedonian police in 2002 working under the orders of a government minister.
But each time, the efforts have been stone-walled by the Macedonian authorities. However, Pakistan's ambassador to Turkey, who is also accredited to Macedonia, had now renewed efforts to obtain their identity and bodies and to demand compensation for the loss of lives of seven Pakistanis. He hoped the effort would yield result soon.
