Date:30/03/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/03/30/stories/2005033003791100.htm

National

F-16 offer to Pakistan an impediment to peace: CPI

By Our Special Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, MARCH 29. The Communist Party of India today said the U.S. offer to sell F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan would fuel an arms race and comes at a time when peace talks between India and Pakistan were progressing well.

The CPI general secretary, A.B. Bardhan, said the increasing people-to-people contacts would force both Governments to come to an agreement. He said the U.S. could not relish the gathering pace of the peace process.

"Against which country would the F-16s being offered to Pakistan is likely to be used? China, Iran or Afghanistan ... No, it is only against India ... And we too are being offered both the planes and other systems ... now when we are going forward on the peace process, they want to fuel an arms race," Mr. Bardhan told a rally on the eve of the 19th party congress here. He expressed dismay over the comment of the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, for describing the U.S. offer as "positive". The Government should reject the offer, he said. Mr. Bardhan said the party congress would discuss these developments in detail.

Mr. Bardhan said Washington had attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, and had kept unresolved the Palestine issue. The U.S. objection to the India-Iraq-Pakistan gas pipeline project, he said, showed the way in which they sought to dictate terms to the world.

He spoke about his recent visit to Pakistan along with the CPI(M)'s Harkishan Singh Surjeet and said the time had come to convert the common boundaries into a "border of peace".