The Hindu : India still ready for joint surveillance of LoC: Fernandes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 09, 2002

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India still ready for joint surveillance of LoC: Fernandes

The Defence Minister, George Fernandes, with the Japanese Foreign Minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, at her office in Tokyo on Monday. — PTI

Tokyo July 8. Asserting that terrorism emanating from Pakistan continued in Jammu and Kashmir, the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, today said India still stuck to its proposal for joint patrolling with Pakistan of the Line of Control to stop infiltration.

"We are still ready for joint surveillance of the LoC," Mr. Fernandes, who is on a three-day visit to Japan at the invitation of his Japanese counterpart, told presspersons here. But to realise it, there would first have to be "a certain level of understanding" between the two sides as well as "confidence with each other on the borders".

"It will take some time before confidence-building measures can be brought into action... because we have our troops on our side, they have their troops on the other side. They are looking at each other not as friends, not as people having trust in each other."

Pakistan has already dismissed the suggestion as "unworkable".

Cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, Mr. Fernandes said, continued despite the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf's "solemn promise" conveyed to the U.S. President, George Bush, in early June that he would put a "permanent" stop to infiltration and close down militant training camps. After that promise, India had initially acknowledged a decrease in the infiltration of militants across the LoC.

But "we discovered that in mid-June once again terrorism got on the upswing, and what we now have are ups and downs — there isn't any complete end to terrorism and one never knows when it will crop up again".

He said that just ahead of his departure for Japan there were "a couple of incidents" in which alleged terrorists tried to sneak into India from Pakistan, but they were "shot down on the border". — PTI

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