The Hindu : `Talks only if Pak. meets our conditions'

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

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`Talks only if Pak. meets our conditions'

KULLU FEB. 12. Accusing Islamabad of double talk on terrorism, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, today rejected Pakistan's repeated offer of dialogue with India saying New Delhi would have no talks with its neighbour until it fulfilled three conditions — ending cross-border terrorism, dismantling terrorist camps in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and returning 20 Indian fugitives, including Dawood Ibrahim.

Regretting Pakistan's failure to meet these demands so far and pointing out the difference between its words and deeds, Mr. Advani said Islamabad had only changed its language but not its "behaviour and conduct".

The three conditions were put forward by India after the attack on Parliament in December, 2001.

"But they are harping on a dialogue with us. We have tried dialogue twice — by undertaking the Lahore bus journey and in Agra. But both times they cheated us," Mr. Advani said while formally launching the BJP's campaign for the Himachal Pradesh Assembly election at the Dussehra grounds here.

Denouncing Pakistan for terming Kashmiri terrorism as "freedom struggle", he said: "Are the terrorist strike on Indian Parliament, the attack on temples and the killing of women acts of freedom struggle?"

Stating that the world was convinced of India's viewpoint on having no dialogue with Pakistan till it ended the proxy war, Mr. Advani said that even those countries that were publicly insisting on a policy of continued dialogue privately justified New Delhi's stance.

Taking a dig at the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, Mr. Advani said after the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's Lahore bus journey, the General thought the then Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, was taken in by Mr. Vajpayee and therefore he effected a coup.

`West must stop aid'

He urged the Western countries to stop any aid to Islamabad. "Pakistan will be paralysed and cannot survive if Western countries stop their military and financial aid."

Later addressing an election rally in Dhalpur grounds here, Mr. Advani made no reference to Ayodhya or the Ram Temple and sought a positive vote based on the BJP Government's performance during the five years.

He described the allegations of corruption levelled against the Himachal Chief Minister, P.K. Dhumal, as a "bunch of lies without any basis''.

In an apparent reference to the Punjab Government's raids on Mr. Dhumal's relatives there which yielded nothing, Mr. Advani said "they themselves have realised their mistakes". Even Mr. Dhumal's critics concede that he was "honest".

He said the party, if voted back to power, would convert the State into India's Switzerland in terms of tourism, employment and prosperity.

Mr. Advani denied reports of differences within the BJP on extending support to the Mayawati Government in Uttar Pradesh.

UNI, PTI

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