Pak. to examine CBMs `on merit'

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, JULY 26. Even as India officially conveyed the proposals on Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs), announced in the run-up to the Agra summit, Pakistan today maintained that it would `examine them on merit.'

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman told a news conference here that Islamabad had received `a number of proposals on CBMs' from New Delhi and it was in the process of examining them. The announcement is slightly at variance with the earlier stand of Islamabad. When India had unveiled the CBMs before the summit, Pakistan's response was that they should follow, rather than precede, the summit.

In a press conference a day after the summit (July 17), the Pakistan Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdul Sattar, had said that no proposals on CBMs were discussed at the summit. Three days later, at his televised news conference, the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said that resolution of the Kashmir dispute was the biggest CBM.

The various pre-summit Indian proposals on CBMs included a dialogue among nuclear experts at the official level; relaxation of visa and travel regime; fellowships to Pakistani scholars and a policy on the release of fishermen who inadvertently strayed into territorial waters.

At the news conference today, the spokesman did not elaborate on the Indian proposal to send the Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO) to discuss various issues related to border management.

Enquiries with New Delhi revealed that some of the CBMs, announced on the eve of the summit, were conveyed before the summit and others after the summit. ``We have merely articulated the CBMs already announced and given it to Islamabad in the form of formal proposals,'' a senior diplomat said.

Western diplomats based here see a link in the relatively flexible attitude adopted by Islamabad on the CBMs to the coming visit of the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Ms. Christina Rocca, to Pakistan. She is due here on July 30 on a five-day official tour.

The Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman did not respond to a question on the Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani's statement in Parliament on Wednesday. Asked if the `hardliners' in India were responsible for the two countries' failure to reach an agreement at Agra, he merely drew attention to the observations of Gen. Musharraf, who had, in his press conference, talked about the `hawks' on both sides and the need to ignore them if meaningful progress were to be made in bilateral ties.

When a pressperson wanted the spokesman to comment on a report in an English daily which quoted Gen. Musharraf as telling his Cabinet colleagues that hardliners in the Indian Government had prevented the signing of a Joint Declaration at Agra, he pleaded helplessness.

Referring to Mr. Vajpayee's statement on the summit in both Houses of Parliament, he said Pakistan had noted India's desire to continue the dialogue process.

There was a ``misleading impression that Pakistan has made settlement of Jammu and Kashmir as a pre-condition for normalisation of ties with India. The President (Gen. Musharraf) had emphasised that movement towards settlement of Kashmir in accordance with the wishes of people of Kashmir would allow in tandem normalisation in other areas.''

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Front Page
Previous : PM warns Pak. on propaganda
Next     : 31 Indians to be released