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Pak. wants `concrete' measures

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, APRIL 28. A day after the Pakistan Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, announced that his country would respond to the peace initiative by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Pakistan today hoped that India would come up with "concrete" measures.

"We remain positive that concrete measures would come forward and India would also agree that dialogue starts as soon as possible and we hope that it will start very soon," the Foreign Office spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan, said at the weekly briefing here.

The remark attributed to the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, that Mr. Vajpayee's statement in Srinagar did not reflect any change in policy appears to have put Islamabad in a bind.

In response to a question Mr. Khan said Pakistan had not received any offer of dialogue from the official channel. At the same time it did consider the Prime Minister's initiative as an offer. "We learnt it through the media and communicated our response through the media".

Asked to elaborate on the announcement on Sunday, the spokesman said Mr. Jamali immediately welcomed Mr. Vajpayee's statement and Pakistan's position remained the same. He reiterated the stand that dialogue was the only way to resolve outstanding issues including the core Kashmir dispute, saying " sooner it (dialogue) is held, the better it would be for the two countries".

On the reported remarks by the U.S. Secretary of State, Collin Powell, on cross-border infiltration along the LoC, Mr. Khan said it was impossible to verify claims without physical presence at the LoC. "Lot of propaganda emanating from India can mislead (anyone) and the best way to verify is the positioning of observers," he said.

Mr. Khan said that the U.N. Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) was in place for the last five decades and its number could be increased for this purpose.

On the recent visit of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, to China, Mr. Khan said Pakistan-China relations were time-tested and would not be affected by China's ties with any other country.

On the upcoming visit of Deputy U.S. Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, to Pakistan, he said it would provide an opportunity for discussion on bilateral relations, regional issues, the Kashmir situation and Pakistan-India relations.

"It would be a good opportunity to brief him about our viewpoint on these subjects," he said.

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