N-plan will not be rolled back: FO

Published February 22, 2002

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The dialogue between the United States and Pakistan, and between Washington and Delhi that had started after both the South Asian states had tested their nuclear devices in 1998, may be resumed.

Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan stated this at a press briefing here on Thursday when asked about the resumption of interrupted talks among the three capitals.

He said there was a feeling among the governments concerned that the talks should be revived. Pakistan favoured reduction of tension and de-escalation in conventional as well as nuclear arms, he said but added that no schedule for talks had been worked out yet.

Redefining Pakistan’s role in anti-terrorism war and in the US-led military operation in Afghanistan, he said it was confined to sharing of intelligence, logistic support and use of airspace.

The spokesman said that President Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Japan was being worked out and would be announced as soon as it was finalized.

Asked about an American report quoting sources in the ISI directorate in Islamabad as having said the government had decided to close down the Kashmir and Afghanistan cells in the ISI, the spokesman rejected it as totally baseless. He said he had denied a similar report about a month ago and believed that “the motivated and tendentious report had been recycled.” Pakistan sought an early end to civil war in Afghanistan while Kashmiris’ struggle in Indian-held Kashmir was evidently indigenous and could not be staged at the behest of anyone, he stressed.

The spokesman denied when a reporter asked whether Pakistan might roll back its nuclear programme as had been demanded by Washington.

The spokesman described as a “horrible thing” Israeli army’s wanton attacks against Palestinians in the recent past. He reiterated that Pakistan would not share information with New Delhi on Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh’s interrogation in connection with the mysterious disappearance of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

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