Sharief ready for talks on non-aggression pact with India
C K Arora and Dhirendra Bisht in New York
In what is described as Pakistan's propaganda offensive, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief has offered ''to open negotiations on a treaty of non-aggression with India''.
Sharief, in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly
in New York on Monday, said such a pact would help settle the Kashmir dispute and usher in ''an era of amity and progress in South Asia''.
He said his government would persevere in the current dialogue
with India, but prescribed three steps for New Delhi to make it a
success.
These are: ''A halt in India's campaign of repression against
the Kashmir people, withdrawal of at least those Indian troops
which are engaged in internal repression in Kashmir and evolution
of a mechanism to take into account the Kashmiri people's wishes,
stipulated by the UN for a final settlement.''
Sharief's speech, which was bitterly critical of India, came as
a surprise to observers in New York, particularly at a time when New Delhi is going out of its way to have better relations with Islamabad, offering unilateral concessions.
Besides, he has taken a stridently anti-India posture on the eve
of his meeting with Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral -- their second in four months.
Though no Indian reaction was immediately available to
Sharief's criticism, officials may comment on it after Gujral's
meeting with his Pakistani counterpart later on Tuesday.
Gujral is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Wednesday
and it remains to be seen whether he would respond to the Pakistani
criticism.
When a senior US state department official was asked to
comment on Sharief's proposal, he said, ''I have not seen the
speech but we will be interested in knowing India's view on that.''
Earlier, in his speech, Sharief claimed that his government
had taken the initiative to resume the stalled dialogue with India.
''We had agreed in June last on a comprehensive agenda
and a mechanism to deal with all issues, including the core issue
of Jammu and Kashmir, in a sustained manner. We have, unfortunately,
not succeeded yet in setting up the agreed mechanism to launch
substantive negotiations on all the issues on the agenda of our
dialogue.''
Sharief hoped that ''India will reciprocate our sincerity of
purpose in substantially addressing all the issues and carrying
forward this process of dialogue to a positive outcome.''
In the expectation that the Pakistan-India dialogue would have
made a ''heartening advance'' by next year, the Pakistani prime
minister offered to host a regional economic summit in 1998.
Shifting the blame on New Delhi for the slow progress of the
dialogue, he said, ''All this and much more can be achieved if
India joins us in pursuing our current dialogue to its successful
culmination.''
UNI
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