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U.N. Official Says Afghanistan May Overshadow Annan Pakistan Trip
UNITED NATIONS, March 8 (News Agencies) - Problems associated with Afghanistan may dominate a visit which United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is to make to Pakistan this weekend, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.
Annan arrives Saturday in Islamabad, where he will meet Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, and other officials. He is also expected to visit an Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar, close to the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier.
He will go on to Nepal for a one-day visit on Monday and continue to Bangladesh and then India before returning to New York on March 18th.
"The problem in Pakistan will be to ensure a proper balance between the Pakistani and Afghani aspects, and if one is not careful, the Afghani aspect will overwhelm the visit," the official said.
On domestic questions, he said, "The secretary general will want to encourage the regime to maintain its timetable for a return to democracy."
He said Annan was also likely to raise the issue of nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan and to try to persuade those countries to sign the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
India, Pakistan and North Korea are the three states which have not signed the CTBT but whose ratification is required for the treaty to enter force.
"Kashmir is not an issue that can be avoided and it is certain the Pakistanis will want to raise it," the official said.
"But India has made it clear time and again that they don't want the issue internationalized and that they would prefer to deal with Pakistan on a bilateral footing."
In Pakistan, Annan is likely to raise the demands of the U.N. Security Council that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Islamic militia hand over Osama bin Laden, who is wanted on multiple charges of murder in the United States.
Asked what line Annan might take, the official said: "It is not good diplomacy to broadcast your intentions before you arrive."
Pakistan is the Taliban's number one international supporter and "some Pakistanis are worried about the long-term implications of that," he said.
"If they are thinking creatively about the Bin Laden problem, that would be very helpful," he added.
The Taliban too had occasionally seemed to show interest in finding a way of "ridding themselves of an international burden," he went on, because they saw bin Laden as complicating their relations with other Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
But Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, saw things differently and it was "impossible to over-rule him," the official added.
He said "one ought not to dramatize" the visits to the four countries, which were part of Annan's regular program.
"There will not be a tremendous amount of time for discussion, let alone negotiation, with the host governments," he said.
The four countries had all made a "conspicuous contribution to peacekeeping operations," he noted.
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal respectively rank second, third, ninth and 11th among troop-contributing countries, each with between 1,000 and 3,250 soldiers serving in U.N. operations.
The official added that, "it would be a mistake to see the visit to India as entirely political," and went on:
"India has a thriving high-tech industry and if there is time the secretary general will want to see that," possibly by visiting Bangalore.
The industry is "breaking the mould of India as a third-world country," he said, noting also that India has "one of the largest middle classes in the world."
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