NEW YORK: Several Afro-Asian delegations to the UN General Assembly are being openly critical of the incongruity of the American approach towards international problems. They point out that while the USA insists on going through the United Nations in resolving the Indo-Pakistan conflict, she is going at it alone in South Viet-Nam.

These delegates also point to the inconsistency of the American action in supplying arms to a non-ally, like India, when it suits them and withholding supplies from an ally like Pakistan when it does not.

The Afro-Asian delegates describe this American posture of neutrality as, in effect, an attitude of hostility towards Pakistan. They point out that ever since 1954 Pakistan depended entirely on the USA for her military requirements, whereas India, putting herself up as neutral, has been gathering military hardware from all sources, right or left — the USA, the UK, and the USSR.

Therefore, the delegates feel, the adoption by America of this posture of neutrality amounted to letting down Pakistan at a critical moment. The only result of this policy was to hurt Pakistan and reward India for its dubious, ambivalent policy. America’s friends must be wondering, they said, if they can really depend on American friendship.

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies from Rawalpindi], the Leader of the House in the National Assembly, Mr Abdus Sabur Khan, commenting on the Indian master plan to invade East Pakistan said here this evening [Oct 12] that the entire nation is prepared to face the Indian aggression whether it is against East Pakistan or West Pakistan.

He told a Radio Pakistan representative that the treacherous Indian attack against West Pakistan had united the whole country under the leadership of President Ayub. No amount of Indian machinations and mischievous propaganda, he said, can affect this unity and solidarity.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2015

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