The Hindu : PM hopes Pak. will act on curbs against Hizb

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 22, 2003

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PM hopes Pak. will act on curbs against Hizb

By J.P. Shukla

LUCKNOW MAY 21. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, today welcomed Pakistan's action to ban the activities of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and said there was no reason to adopt a soft attitude towards terrorism. He expressed the hope that Islamabad would "sincerely implement" the restrictions on the Hizb and said that a solution to the problems between the two countries would be found through talks.

However, Mr. Vajpayee said , Pakistan would have to demolish the bases of terrorism that it had built within its territory. He wished that a climate would soon develop to have negotiations with Pakistan to resolve all outstanding issues.

He refuted the Opposition charges that India had been forced to negotiate with Pakistan under "American pressure" .The insinuations had been rejected even by the U.S. leaders, he said.

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Vajpayee favoured a solution to the Iraq problem through the United Nations. What had happened in Iraq had affected the whole world and the issue should be dealt with as such, he said when asked to comment on the U.S. move in the Security Council to have more powers to deal with the situation in Iraq.

Mr. Vajpayee also disapproved of the way Pakistan had raised the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the Security Council. "No country was in favour of such a move by Pakistan which did not get any support in the Security Council.'' Islamabad, he hoped, would take a lesson from this fact and try to resolve the various problems bilaterally.

The recent killings at Rajouri in which the throats of children had been slit by terrorists indicated the severity of the terrorist problem. Some people were hoping that the terrorists might have learnt their lessons as they had lost all popular support in Jammu and Kashmir but they were disappointed. These incidents in India as also in some other countries had come as a warning and there was need to strengthen efforts to fight terror at the international level.

To a question, the Prime Minister said a reshuffle of the Union Cabinet would take place shortly.

Asked if the Lok Sabha elections would be advanced, he said there was no such proposal before him.

During his two-day visit to Lucknow, Mr. Vajpayee launched a number of projects, including the development of a new railway terminal at Gomti Nagar. Today, he inaugurated a direct Air-India flight from Lucknow to Jeddah. Later Mr. Vajpayee left for New Delhi.

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