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Jaswant rules out early dialogue with Pakistan
By Atul Aneja
NEW DELHI, JAN. 7. A day after an informal interaction between the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, at Kathmandu, India today ruled out an early dialogue with Pakistan.
India's reluctance to go in for talks was formalised after a two-hour meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). India cited the dissatisfaction at the steps taken by Pakistan to counter terrorism as the basis of its decision. ``Where is the question of dialogue when there is no change in the attitude (of Pakistan),'' the External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, said after the meeting chaired by the Prime Minister.
By rejecting talks, India is signalling to the international community that it should continue to impose pressure on Pakistan on terrorism, analysts here said.
Significantly, India has adopted this position when the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is touring the subcontinent, apparently to help defuse military tension between New Delhi and Islamabad. Mr. Blair, who was in the capital on Sunday, had unambiguously advocated the resumption of an Indo-Pak. dialogue after the threat of terrorism ended. According to an agency report, Mr. Blair last night also spoke to the U.S. President, George Bush, after holding talks with Mr. Vajpayee.
Mr. Singh today praised Mr. Blair for his forthrightness, but signalled that prospects of early negotiations with Pakistan were dim, despite interaction, on several occasions, with his counterpart, Abdul Sattar, in Kathmandu.
The view in official circles on the Pakistani crackdown is that Islamabad has not done enough to put pressure on terrorists involved in Kashmir. After the detention of the chiefs of the parent organisation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, most of those arrested in Pakistan belonged to the Sipah-e-Sabah. This group spearheads a violent anti-Shia campaign in Pakistan, Government sources said.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Singh accused Pakistan of double standards in its approach to terrorism. ``They do continue to maintain a very different approach when it was a matter of Western interest or Afghanistan and a different approach when it comes to the question of India or Jammu and Kashmir.'' This, Mr. Singh, was ``not acceptable.'' ``You cannot have one attitude towards terrorism to west of Pakistan and altogether a different attitude to east of Pakistan.'' Pakistan's attitude towards terrorism, Mr. Singh said, was ``regrettable''.
He rejected the Pakistani assertion that India had not shared any evidence with it about 20 terrorists against whom it had sought action. Apart from proof provided by India, the Interpol had sounded a red alert against several individuals in this list, he added.
According to sources, once the red alert notice is issued, it is mandatory for any country, including Pakistan, to detain the accused who may be present on its soil. Besides, Pakistan can hand over terrorists to India on the basis of an agreement on ``fugitives of terror'' that was signed between the Central Bureau of Investigation and Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency in May 1989.
Interpol, the sources added, had issued red corner notices against all the five accused for hijacking the Indian Airlines plane in December 1999. Such a notice had also been issued for Ranjit Singh, alias `Neeta' accused of being involved in terrorist activities in Jammu.
`Border tense'
The Indo-Pak. border continues to remain tense, Mr. Singh said. He confirmed that a Pakistani Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) had been shot down. Its wreckage, however, fell on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control. He also clarified that an Indian UAV had also crashed due to a technical snag. Both India and Pakistan use UAVs, mainly for detecting troop build-ups on either side of the border.
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