A rchive Date
[ 04-06-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Russia ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSTopNews/india_june3-ap.html
Russia assails Pakistan
By JUDITH INGRAM-- Associated Press
Monday, June 3, 2002
ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) - Russia ratcheted up pressure on Pakistan on Monday with withering criticism of Islamabad's alleged aid to terrorists, while the Indian government dismissed fears that either country would use nuclear weapons in their conflict over the Himalayan province of Kashmir.
En route to a regional summit in Kazakhstan, where he arrived Monday, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf insisted that Pakistan would not start a war with India.
Meanwhile, there was heavy cross-border shelling Monday in three areas of Kashmir - Batalik, Kargil and Dras - and at least two people were reported shot to death in India's portion of the disputed region, an Indian Defense Ministry statement said.
Scores of people piled belongings onto trucks Monday in a mass exodus from Kotli in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, after officials imposed an overnight blackout throughout the region. Witnesses spoke of Indian artillery shells landing just a mile from the city, about 25 miles away from the frontier separating Pakistan and India. Farther south, in Khoiratta, residents said almost 10,000 of the village's 15,000 people have fled.
On the eve of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of India and Pakistan, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov accused Islamabad of allowing "terrorists" from Afghanistan to cross into India. He assailed Pakistan for conducting missile tests that further exacerbated the crisis, which has pushed nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
"Armed terrorists and extremists from Pakistan keep infiltrating into Indian territory," Ivanov said, according to the Interfax-Military News Agency. "This is a fact you can't turn a blind eye to. Moreover, terrorists who are entering India previously have been ousted from Afghanistan."
Ivanov also said the recent test-firing of nuclear capable missiles by Pakistan had further escalated tension over Kashmir.
"Against the background of the conflict, the nuclear missile tests conducted by Pakistan were a provocative gesture," Ivanov said.
"Any nuclear weapons tests conducted in an atmosphere of extreme tension and suspicion ... is wrong and provocative," he said. "This will definitely push New Delhi to take proportionate retaliatory measures."
India conducted a similar test in January.
Meanwhile Monday, the Indian Defense Ministry tried to calm international concern about the danger that the conflict could erupt into nuclear war.
"The government makes it clear that India does not believe in the use of nuclear weapons. Neither does it visualize that it will be used by any other country," the ministry said in a statement released in New Delhi. "India categorically rules out the use of nuclear weapons."
Pakistani Information Minister Nisar Memon refused to say why Pakistan would not rule out the first use of nuclear weapons as India has.
But, he told reporters in Almaty, "Pakistan's president has clearly said ... that no country will be thinking of this kind of thing to settle the dispute."
Musharraf told reporters Sunday that he was prepared for talks with India "anywhere and at any level."
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has refused to talk with Musharraf until infiltration of Pakistan-based Islamic militants, and attacks in Indian territory, are halted.
Vajpayee said Monday that he had won support from the Central Asian leader who is playing host this week to a 16-nation security summit.
"We share identical views on what measures should be taken to resolve the crisis" over terrorism, Vajpayee said after meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. However, he did not elaborate in his brief remarks to journalists, other than to express "faith that there would be no encouragement to those elements who believe in terrorism or religious extremism."
Musharraf also met one on one with Nazarbayev on Monday evening. A Pakistani spokesman could not provide any details of the talks other than the fact that they lasted longer than planned.
The India-Pakistan crisis revolves around Kashmir, which is claimed by both countries. The dispute has led to two of the three wars between the nations since they won independence from Britain in 1947.
Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, both of whose countries belong to the 16-nation Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, were scheduled to meet separately with Musharraf and Vajpayee on Tuesday to encourage them to talk face to face. So far, Vajpayee has refused.
"We don't need to come all the way here to have a meeting. We could meet in our country or his (Musharraf's), if the circumstances were right," Omar Abdullah, the deputy Indian foreign minister, told reporters in Almaty on Monday. "There will be no secret parleys, no dialogue, no discussion."
But Memon, the Pakistani information minister, expressed hope that the mediation efforts would make progress. He said Pakistan's first choice would be dialogue, the second mediation, and the third proximity talks or shuttle diplomacy. He would not describe the meetings scheduled Tuesday with Putin and Jiang as proximity talks.
India says Islamic militants crossing the border from Pakistan have carried out terror attacks, including a deadly assault on the Indian Parliament in December and on an Indian army base in Kashmir last month, which left more than 30 dead, including wives and children of army officers.
Memon, however, insisted Monday: "We deny any such camps to be there and that there is any action against India, cross-border terrorism. We have increased our own vigilance on the Line of Control, so if anybody who wants to harm Pakistan's interests by harming India is there..."
Musharraf and other Pakistani officials have insisted they are cracking down, and they dispute India's contention that Pakistan actively helps the militants. They say that Pakistan provides only moral and diplomatic support for Kashmiris, most of them Muslims, who want either independence or a merger with Islamic Pakistan.
"There is no infiltration taking place. We've invited independent foreign observers to come and assess the situation for themselves but India does not accede to this request," Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan said Monday in Islamabad.
Meanwhile, state-run Pakistan Television reported that seven people were killed Monday by Indian shelling, including six along the Line of Control and one on the "working boundary" near Punjab province.
More than 30 civilians have been killed in the border shelling since firing along the frontier intensified two weeks ago, security officials in India-controlled Kashmir said Monday.
The United States and at least 12 other countries as well as the United Nations have issued travel warnings about India and Pakistan.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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