The Hindu : Islamabad planning to approach U.N.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 20, 2002

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Islamabad planning to approach U.N.

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD May 19. Pakistan is planning to `approach' the U.N. Security Council seeking its intervention to defuse the current tension in the region. The Pakistan daily, Dawn, in its report quoted informed sources, as saying that Islamabad did not rule out the possibility of asking the U.N. to invoke the Security Council Resolution 1172 passed in 1998. The resolution pertained to the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan and the need for resolution of the Kashmir issue.

The daily said Pakistan was keeping the U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan, informed on a daily basis on India's `warlike actions' and on the heavy shelling across the Line of Control. It said Islamabad had asked the international community to use its influence with India and dissuade it from escalating tensions.

It said Pakistan had not ruled out the possibility of India declaring `an all-out war' against it and had taken the required steps to defend its borders and the LoC. The moves New Delhi could make may include heavy artillery attacks across the LoC, air attacks on the `so-called militant infrastructure', incursion by special forces into certain specified areas to wipe out what the Indians believed to be the camps of militants and attempts to redraw a `defensible line of control', it said.

The international community had so far not bought the Indian campaign on involvement of Pakistan in the Jammu incident. "But by refusing to make any distinction between militancy by freedom fighters waging a war against occupation forces and that which is perpetrated by international terrorism the world community seems to be providing India the room to create a negative perception of Pakistan's attitude towards the Kashmiri freedom fight.''

The paper said Pakistan was trying to dispel the impression in the foreign capitals that Islamabad was soft-pedalling on eliminating religious extremism. This impression had been created by the release of most of the suspected militants rounded up in January, as under the law of the land they could not be kept in custody without proof of their alleged crimes beyond 90 days.

Also Pakistan had told its friends that it was next to impossible to stop the infiltration of Kashmiris across the LoC as most of them were members of divided families living on both sides of the LoC. If India with such massive deployment of troops on the LoC could not stop this infiltration how could Pakistan, in a defensive position, do that?

Quoting sources, the paper said the timing of the Jammu incident was just right for the Indian Government to divert the attention of the world community from the embarrassment of Gujarat.

The paper said Pakistan had told its `friends' that it had little to gain by encouraging militant activities inside Jammu and Kashmir and such incidents only served India's purpose of gaining international sympathy.

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