The Hindu : Pak. PM hopes for dialogue

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 13, 2003

International

International

Pak. PM hopes for dialogue

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD FEB. 12. In his first comments since the diplomatic expulsions, the Pakistan Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, today hoped that `better sense' would prevail and India would come to the negotiating table to resolve all issues through dialogue.

Asked specifically by correspondents about the diplomatic row, he alleged that it was `initiated' by New Delhi. He alleged that that India had been behaving in this manner in the past as well.

Mr. Jamali accused India of unleashing propaganda against Pakistan and said India had time and again indulged in this kind of `rhetoric'. He asserted that the Government was fully `alive' to the situation and knew how to safeguard national interests.

In a related development, the Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, said that Pakistan would make every attempt to `thwart Indian designs' to capitalise on the post-September 11 situation. He briefed the editors and columnists of the newspapers in Lahore on different foreign policies issues including U.S.-Pak. ties, Kashmir, Pak.-India relations and Afghanistan.

``The major objective of the meeting with the editors and columnists was to seek their feedback on government's policies on different issues,'' Mr. Kasuri told the state supervised news agency, Associated Press of Pakistan. He told the agency that the Kashmir problem could be resolved only through dialogue. ''The resolution of the issues between India and Pakistan through peaceful means is in the interest of the poverty-stricken South Asia.'' Mr. Kasuri argued that only political stability and the end of fears of war could help ensure economic well being of people of this region.

Mr. Kasuri alleged that right-wing Hindu extremist elements of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were responsible for aborting any accord at the Agra Summit between Musharraf and A.B. Vajpayee. ``These elements are stoking the hostilities in India against Pakistan and Muslims; Carnage of Muslims in Gujarat is testimony to it,'' Mr. Kasuri said.

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