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'No shift in Pak.'s Kashmir policy'

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD Sept. 6. On the eve of the visit of the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, to the United States to take part in a function to commemorate the September 11 terror strikes on American cities, the Minister in-charge of Pak. Occupied Kashmir (PoK), Nisar A. Memon, has asserted that there was no shift in Pakistan's Kashmir policy.

The categorical tone of the Minister, while presiding over a meeting of elected members of the PoK Council here, assumes significance in the wake of debate within Pakistan on the subject after a newspaper asserted that during his visit to New York, Gen. Musharraf would announce a paradigm shift in the Kashmir policy. After addressing the United Nations General Assembly on September 12, Gen. Musharraf is scheduled to hold talks with the U.S. President, George W. Bush.

Mr. Memon was assigned last week additional charge of the portfolio of Kashmir affairs after his predecessor, Abbas Sarfaraz Khan, quit office to contest the October general elections.

Though the Pakistan Foreign Office has dismissed the newspaper report as `totally baseless', Pakistan-based Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has warned the Musharraf Government of `dire consequences' if it were to agree for conversion of Line of Control (LoC) as a permanent border.

Mr. Memon told the newly-elected members of the PoK Council that not only Pakistan's stand on the Kashmir issue remained unchanged but also its `diplomatic position' on the Kashmir issue has improved due to which `India is feeling depressed'. He has asserted that international pressure on India has increased for resolution of the Kashmir issue.

The Minister welcomed the statement by the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, to a group of visiting Pakistani journalists that Kashmir was on international agenda the way it has never been before and that there was a lot of concern in the international community to resolve the issue.

The meeting also offered prayers for those killed in the `freedom struggle' in the Kashmir and those who died due to Indian shelling in PoK. The Minister was informed that the PoK Council, which is headed by the chief executive of Pakistan, came into being in 1975 under the PoK Interim Constitution Act, 1974. The Council works as a `bridge' between the Government of Pakistan and the PoK Government.

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