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Foreign Ministers Shake Hands, Leaders Talk Tough
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Vajpayee
warns Pakistan
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By IOL Correspondent in India, Zafarul-Islam Khan
NEW DELHI, Jan. 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Foreign ministers of India and Pakistan shook hands and posed together for photographers at Katmandu on the sidelines of a conference of regional leaders in Nepal beginning Friday. However, India was still far from sitting with Pakistan at any level for formal talks in order to ease tensions.
The two foreign ministers did not allow journalists from the other country to attend their respective press conferences in the Nepalese capital. In his press conference the Pakistani minister asked India to give Pakistan a chance to address New Delhi's concerns and renewed Pakistan's request for an early dialogue with India.
Although the Indian war hysteria seems to be melting away under massive international pressure, back home both Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, continued to talk tough.
Adopting his toughest posture since the eruption of the current problem, Vajpayee hinted Wednesday at using every option in what he called “self-defense” against Pakistan. “We should not be held responsible if the aggressor is eliminated in the process,” he thundered.
Vajpayee claimed that “Terrorism has become state policy of Pakistan.”
Moreover, he flatly refused to provide Islamabad with proof of Pakistan's involvement in the attack on the Indian parliament on 13 December. “Everybody knows that the five bodies lying outside Parliament belong to which country. The bullet marks on the walls of Parliament are another proof,” Vajpayee said, adding that India does not yield to any pressure.
“It was this reason we experimented with nuclear bombs in 1996. The whole world stood against us on this issue, but we managed to survive.”
Vajpayee further insisted that India would not hesitate to use any weapon available with it and “should not be held responsible if the enemy is wiped out in the process.”
Musharraf kept pace with the blustering rhetoric. He warned India that it would pay "a heavy price" for any attack, but promised that his country would not be the first to go to war.
“Pakistan wants peace and de-escalation but should a mistake of attacking Pakistan be made they would regret their decision,” he told a joint meeting of the National Security Council and the cabinet.
“If attacked we will respond more than adequately and they would not like to bear the damage which we would be able to cast on them,” the official Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Musharraf as telling the meeting.
Despite Musharraf's tough warning, frantic U.S.-led international efforts to reduce tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals appear to have had some effect. Pakistan arrested over 100 members of the two Kashmiri groups that India blames for the December 13 attack on Parliament.
However, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, has demanded 'actionable' evidence from India before the question of extraditing the alleged criminals could be considered.
He told reporters in Katmandu that only India could meet the legal conditions for extradition. “India will have to make a case against each enlisted person in its own courts, provide evidence that would help indict these persons and ask for extradition under the SAARC Anti-Terrorism Convention of 1987,” Sattar said.
There is no extradition treaty between the two countries.
Sattar reminded journalists that India did not file a charge sheet against Jaish-e Muhammad (JeM) chief, Azhar Masood, while he was held for five years in Indian jails, charged with the hijacking of an Indian Airlines jetliner to Kandahar in December 1999.
On the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, firing continued through Tuesday and Wednesday. Six Pakistani soldiers were reportedly killed Wednesday because of Indian shelling. Civilians continued to flee from border areas.
Three months after the attack on the Kashmiri legislative assembly building which killed 38 persons, fighters lobbed hand grenades against the same building Wednesday evening, killing one policeman and injuring twenty persons including seven policemen.
India has accused JeM for this attack. JeM threatened to carry out new 'deadly' attacks on Indian security forces Wednesday. “We are in the possession of more deadly and sophisticated weapons and they will be fully used against the military and paramilitary forces of India in the coming days. The new deadly attacks would weaken the resolve of the Indian government to take on the Mujahedin and victory will be ours,” the group, now banned by Pakistan, said in a press statement published in the Srinagar newspaper.
In separate incidents three fighters and a civilian woman were killed in the Kashmir valley.
In a related development, the Times of India reported Thursday that Musharraf has ordered the closure of the ISI wing that deals exclusively with Pakistani-based groups in Kashmir like Lashkar-e-Taiba and JeM , according to reports from Pakistan.
However, the paper reported that Pakistan will continue to provide moral and diplomatic support, but not military training or supplies, to 'indigenous' Kashmiri groups like Hizbul Mujahedin, provided such groups purge themselves of all non-Kashmiris.
According to the newspaper's Washington correspondent, Musharraf is believed to have given these assurances to Washington in an effort to forestall a threatened war by India and punitive measures by Washington.
In another significant development, India has virtually cut off its part of Kashmir from the rest of the country and the world starting Tuesday, January 1, 2002. Internet facilities as well international telephone lines have been closed down. This leaves Kashmiris cut off from the outside world.
Thousands of public telephone booths and internet cafes have been closed down throughout Kashmir. The unofficial explanation is that this draconian step has been taken to cut off communication between militant groups.
But this unprecedented measure is believed to harm the ordinary people and cripple trade in the beleaguered valley. This will also place Kashmir under a virtual media blackout.
Indian-controlled Kashmir already has no direct telephone connection with Pakistan.
There are reports from Muslim areas in the Indian capital that international telephone calls to Pakistan are being unofficially denied by public telephone booths. Civilians are told that this is being done on police and intelligence instructions.
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