KARACHI, March 3: Islamabad sees no de-escalation in situation on its border with India until New Delhi takes some concrete steps to pull back troops from the periphery.

This was stated by Inter-Services Public Relations Director-General Maj Gen Rashid Qureshi, in response to a question, during an informal briefing on Sunday to senior newsmen on President Pervez Musharraf’s visit to the United States and Pakistan’s policy to resolve all issues through talks.

He referred the Agra Summit, and said that despite our repeated offers India continued to promote war phobia.

The director-general said deployment of the Indian army on the border had triggered internal conflicts in the Indian armed forces. The resignation/ removal of a corps commander in Kashmir and premature retirement of two senior army officers showed that not only the international community, but also wise people in India had been disputing the war phobia against Pakistan.

Recounting another setback, he said people had rejected the BJP’s policies in the recent elections.

Likewise, Mr Qureshi said, it was India which suffered most from ban on overflying, as against 12 flights of Pakistan 120 Indian flights had affected from this restrictions. Now India was trying to woo other international airlines to carry out its operations to Afghanistan, but it had been made clear that Pakistan would not allow it, he added.

He said recent incidents of worst violence in India had exposed its instance for secularism, and the world should take notice of it.

ISPR chief termed Indian allegation of Pakistan’s interference in the occupied Kashmir “nothing but propaganda”, pointing out that freedom struggle in the valley was indigenous and outcome of the atrocities of the occupation army.

Replying to a question, he said the US visit of the president turned out to be very productive, where exposure of Pakistan’s stand on different pressing issues, particularly in the region including Kashmir, was widely appreciated by the western media, US Congress, Senate and the Pakistani expatriates in the US.

To another question, he said that neither Islamabad had gone with any list of demands nor made any presentation in this regard.