ISLAMABAD, March 11: Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi, director-general of the Inter-Services Public Relations, said here on Monday that the government was under no pressure to take sides in the coming elections, and was committed to ensuring that the elections were totally free and transparent and held according to schedule.

Gen Qureshi, who is also the Press Secretary to President Gen Pervez Musharraf, said he was not aware if any foreign observers were to be invited to monitor the October polls, neither he knew if there were requests to formally observe and monitor the elections by anyone from abroad.

He was answering questions at a Foreign Office press briefing also addressed by Foreign Office spokesman Aziz A. Khan.

When asked to comment on the statement made by Indian Information Minister Sushma Swaraj during her stay here last week that India would not withdraw its forces from border until it saw a change in “ground reality”, the Foreign Office spokesman said her observation was unfortunate but Pakistan’s position was very clear; it wanted reduction in tension. Troops should be withdrawn and all issues should be settled through dialogues. Now the ball was in India’s court, he added.

Gen Qureshi ruled out any unilateral reduction in the Pakistani military defence against the Indian armed forces so long as the Indian government refused to reduce its millions of men and military hardware from the borders in spite of Islamabad’s efforts to seek diffusion in border tension. Any assumption of Pakistan reducing its minimum defence vigil on the borders was out of the question, Gen Qureshi said.

Answering another question, the ISPR director general said that the Indian expenditures on military deployment far exceeded the expenses which Pakistan had been incurring on its defence measures to meet any threat to the country. However, it was for New Delhi to choose the way it spent its money though, he pointed out, it had failed in its objective either to coerce Pakistan (on Kashmir issue) or to make a capital out of the situation in their (Indians’) recent domestic elections.

Gen Qureshi said that Pakistan’s military strategy was to check whatever are the Indians’ moves against the security and protection of the people of Pakistan and declared that Pakistan did not look for any outside help and was confident that only the people of Pakistan could defend their security.

Gen Qureshi emphatically refuted speculations in the press of any impending cabinet reshuffle and expressed his disappointment at the way they had been reporting on the replacement of Mr Abdul Sattar as Foreign Minister. “There is absolutely no truth in the foreign minister being replaced,” he stressed and said he felt sorry that such reports continued to appear in the press despite strong official denials in the past as well.

Responding to another question, the DG ISPR said that the military operations launched inside Afghanistan by the coalition forces had caused no pressure of any unusual movement of people across the Afghan-Pakistan border from either side.

Aziz Ahmad Khan said that former Afghan King Zahir Shah would not be coming to Pakistan while flying to Kabul for the loya jirga later this month. He said the government was seriously working for the return of about 800 Pakistanis detained or imprisoned in Afghanistan.

To another question, Aziz Ahmad Khan said investigations into the kidnapping and reported execution of American journalist Daniel Pearl were still continuing and any decision whether to extradite Sheikh Omar to America on US government’s request, must therefore wait.

INDIAN PLANE: Gen Qureshi said an Indian aircraft piloted by a senior Air Force officer intruded into Pakistan. Initially Indians did not admit it but later they admitted their aircraft had strayed. It did take fire and it returned to Indian airspace where its own troops fired at it. They made excuse that the officer was observing their troops on line of control, adds APP.