KARACHI: President Ayub Khan has said that Pakistan will have to go to the United Nations Security Council if the Kashmir situation remained as it is. The president told his first monthly press conference here yesterday that all efforts to resolve the dispute through direct negotiations with India had failed.

Replying to a question if the government proposed to make a fresh move on the Kashmir issue either through direct negotiations with India or at some other level, President Ayub said Pakistan would have no other option but to approach the Security Council if the present situation resulting from the failure of direct negotiations with India continued.

He said Pakistan had been hoping that wisdom would prevail over India. Pakistan, he added, had tried hard to solve the issue through negotiations with India, but its efforts had failed.

“We are prepared to negotiate. But how can you negotiate with people who are not prepared to negotiate?” he asked, adding that if the situation remained as it was, Pakistan would have to go to the Security Council. “We are hoping to resolve this issue peacefully but resolve it must,” the president said.

A correspondent asked the president whether the impression created during his recent visit to the United States of America that the Kennedy administration would initiate some negotiations towards the settlement of the Kashmir issue was correct.

President Ayub said that the USA happened to be a good friend of both India and Pakistan. If the object of American assistance to these countries was that there should be solidity in the region, causes which vitiated against that objective should be removed. One such cause, he added, was the conflict over Kashmir.