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| 02 October 2004 | Saturday | 16 Shaban 1425 |
India denies pullback plan
NEW DELHI, Oct 1: India does not plan to withdraw troops from the Siachen Glacier and recent news reports claiming otherwise are "pure speculation and a lie," Indian Foreign Minister Kunwar Natwar Singh said on Friday.
He was quoted by the United News of India (UNI) as talking to journalists in London. It appears from the report that the offending reports that prompted the remarks emanated from the "Pakistani press".
Yet, Mr Singh's denial closely follows the announcement by Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the Siachen issue would be discussed at the military level between the two countries.
Mr Singh's remarks coincided with a report in Delhi's Business Standard newspaper on Friday that sought to strike down "speculation" about any proposal to withdraw Indian troops from Siachen.
"Without trying to undermine the gains of the (Musharraf-Manmohan) meeting senior government sources clarified that the Siachen issue never came up in the conversation between the two leaders," the Standard said.
The newspaper denied what it called were reports in the Pakistani media apparently claiming that India would withdraw troops on Pakistan's assurances that it would not seize the territory thus vacated.
The Indian prime minister and his defence minister have discussed the "initiative that was not," according to the usually reliable Business Standard. Indian soldiers are currently deployed short of the glacier but with unimpeded access to the glacier, the territory they took in 1984, the report said.
"Pakistan says their presence is in violation of the line NJ 9842, and wants India to go back to the 1972 position," it said in what appeared to be a deeply briefed report.
Curiously, the report said: "Because this is disputed, maps are to be exchanged with positions of the armies marked on the maps. The task of identifying troops and procedure for withdrawal is what is to be negotiated."
Having made that point, the report again quotes the unidentified senior source as saying: "Let us be clear. India is going to vacate no territory, assurances or no assurances from Pakistan."
In London, Mr Singh also spoke of the initiatives taken by the Vajpayee government and the present Congress-led administration to push forward India-Pakistan relations.
He said the composite dialogue was being carried forward and the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in New York went extremely well.
Mr Singh stressed that "President Musharraf has now said that he is not unifocal," according to UNI. He added that India had pointed out to Pakistan that despite the border dispute, "trade with China is slated to touch one billion dollars this year and we want this to happen with Pakistan."
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