International

Dhaka's appeal to Security Council

By Haroon Habib

DHAKA May 24. Bangladesh has requested the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to take steps to defuse the escalating tension between India and Pakistan. It has also urged New Delhi and Islamabad to contain the tension and withdraw their troops from the International Border and the Line of Control.

The Foreign Secretary, Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, on Thursday called the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka, Manilal Tripathi, and the Pakistan High Commissioner, Iqbal Ahmed Khan, separately and conveyed his country's ``deep concern at the continued escalation of tension''.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Bangladesh believed the tension ``will have devastating spill-over consequences'' for all the countries in the region if the situation went ``out of control''.

The Bangladesh Permanent Representative at the U.N. had been asked to convey the Government's ``message'' to the permanent members of the Security Council. The country's envoys in the capitals of the five permanent Security Council member-states have been instructed to make a call for efforts to defuse the tension. The SAARC member-countries, particularly its chairman, Nepal, had been approached in this regard.

A communique issued by the Indian High Commission here said Mr. Tripathi made an eight-point observation on Bangladesh's concern at his meeting with Mr. Chowdhury. ``The call for restraint should be addressed to Pakistan, which has been sponsoring, instigating, aiding and abetting cross-border terrorism, not to India,'' it said.

Mr. Tripathi said his country was ``fully conscious of its responsibilities as a responsible member of the international community.'' ``However, India will, as a sovereign nation, use all available means at its disposal to defend the country's territorial integrity and secular foundation of the Indian state and its multi-religious society.''

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