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ISLAMABAD, Jan 15: Pakistan on Monday sent out a stern warning against any attempt of a pre-emptive strike inside its territory on the pretext of combating terrorism.“As for anyone referring to a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan, they should know that this is unacceptable. Pakistan will not tolerate that,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam categorically stated in response to a question at a weekly news briefing here.
She said this when her attention was drawn to the US intelligence agency chief’s reported statement at a Senate briefing last week that India’s patience was running thin on the issue of terrorism being perpetrated inside its territory by groups based in Pakistan and that India might take action to punish Pakistan if any major incident took place in the days ahead.
Although noting that she had seen the full transcript of his testimony and did not find such references, Ms Aslam underlined that Pakistan’s position on the issue was very clear that if India had any information it should come forward and share it with the government. “We have repeatedly said that we would investigate and we will take action,” she said.
The spokesperson mentioned the recently established joint anti-terrorism mechanism and stated: “If indeed there is any evidence that any group from Pakistan is involved in any terrorist act in India, we have a mechanism through which such information can be shared.”
KASHMIR: In response to a question, she clearly indicated that the Jammu and Kashmir issue was discussed at great length during Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s call on the president, the prime minister and in the meeting between the two foreign ministers. “For us Jammu and Kashmir remains the core issue and we believe progress on Kashmir dispute would facilitate normalisation of relations between Pakistan and India,” she declared. Ms Aslam was non-committal on the question of whether at the formal talks with Mr Mukherjee over the weekend Pakistan or India had formally tabled any proposals on Kashmir. She left it at: “There are a number of ideas that have been discussed at various meetings at various levels at different times and we do hope that we make some progress in the resolution of this dispute.”
The spokesperson refused to be drawn into a discussion on the Indian position on Kashmir but reiterated that Kashmir was an internationally accepted dispute.
APHC: On the APHC chairman’s demand that Indian troops should be withdrawn from Kashmir, she pointed out that the ideas President Musharraf had been talking about and which were being discussed included the proposal of demilitarisation. “There have been discussions and discourse on these issues among the Kashmiri leaders and generally they have extended full support to these ideas,” she maintained.
Regarding the APHC delegation’s upcoming visit to Pakistan she said: “Pakistan welcomes these interactions.”
AFGHANISTAN: Giving an update on the Afghanistan specific Pakistan-Nato transit agreement which has been in the works for sometime, the spokesperson said: “We expect a Nato team to visit Pakistan shortly for further discussions and finalisation of this agreement.”
Asked if any cut-off date had been set for the return of Afghan refugees, the spokesperson said Pakistan’s preference was that they returned to Afghanistan at the earliest but emphasised: “We do not want to just push them across, we have hosted them for so long and want their return to be sustainable.” In this regard she said it was very important that the international community and the UN made efforts for the resettlement and rehabilitation of the refugees inside Afghanistan.
The Spokesperson told a questioner that given the ‘easement rights’ of the people in tribal areas the idea of visas and passports to check illegal border movement was not feasible.
Replying to another query she said the objective of introducing documentation was to streamline the cross-border movement, pointing out that about 200,000 people crossed two-way between Pakistan and Afghanistan every month. Stressing that Pakistan would like to streamline the process, control the border and at the same time not make it difficult for people to travel, she said: “It is equally in Afghanistan’s interest to cooperate in this context with Pakistan. Tearing of those documents certainly does not contribute to that.”
