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Vajpayee Rejects Talks Again, Pakistan Blames India for Dispute
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| "The
people of South Asia continue to pay a heavy price for the
refusal of India to resolve the Kashmir dispute,” said
Musharraf.
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ALMATY,
June 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Indian Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee rejected once again Tuesday, June 4, Pakistan’s
offer of talks on their bitter dispute over Kashmir as Islamabad
blamed Indian intransigence for the stand-off between the nuclear
rivals.
Both
Vajpayee and Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, seated at
the same table during the Conference on Interaction and Conference
Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Almaty, used their speeches to air
longstanding grievances over the Himalayan region, which is divided
between the two countries and claimed by both.
Musharraf
blamed India for the current dangerous situation in South Asia.
“The
people of South Asia continue to pay a heavy price for the refusal of
India to resolve the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant
U.N. resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people,” he said,
quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Immediately,
Indian officials hit back, saying Pakistan was sending what they
described as the “same inflexible message.”
India
believes the U.N. resolutions, which call for a plebiscite to allow
the people of the disputed Himalayan state to determine their own
future, have been superseded by subsequent bilateral agreements
between India and Pakistan, who have also fought two wars over the
region.
The
Conference on Interaction and Confidence building in Asia (CICA) has
been overshadowed by tensions between the two countries.
Both
leaders have come under intense international pressure to use the
opportunity of the summit to hold face-to-face talks.
The
Indian prime minister has already ruled out any meeting with
Musharraf, until there is an end to what India describes as
“cross-border terrorism” in Kashmir.
India
accuses Pakistan of allegedly arming, funding and pushing fighters in
Indian-ruled Kashmir to wage war against its security forces, who are
themselves accused of wide-scale human rights abuses in the Himalayan
state.
A
struggle for independence against Indian rule that has raged in the
state since 1989 has claimed more than 35,000 lives. Pakistan puts the
death toll at 70,000.
The
16 CICA member countries, which also include Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran
and Egypt, signed the Almaty Act, the founding document of the
organization which included a clause on terrorism.
“The
member states shall not support on the territory of another member
state any separatist movements and entities, and, if such emerge, not
to establish political, economic and other kinds of relations with
them,” it said.
In
his speech, Vajpayee blamed Musharraf of not being forceful enough
with what he described as religious extremists in Kashmir.
But
the Pakistani leader, without mentioning Kashmir by name, said
extremism could be the result of a state suppressing the “legitimate
struggles” of oppressed people to gain self-determination.
“Terrorism
by states, apart from inflicting massive suffering on occupied people,
spawns a spiral of violence,” said Musharraf.
Vajpayee
said the “epicenter of terrorism and religious extremism” was
close to India's borders and warned Pakistan against any loose talk
about nuclear weapons.
“One
of the important ground rules is that nuclear weapon states should not
indulge in nuclear blackmail,” the prime minister said, speaking in
Hindi.
“India
has already adopted the doctrine of no first use. We believe the
adoption of this by all nuclear weapons states would be an important
confidence building measure,” he added.
One
million troops were already lined up on the borders of the two
neighbors following an attack on parliament in New Delhi which India
has blamed – without evidence to date – on Pakistan.
“For
the past several months, tension along our borders with India and the
Line of Control [the de facto border which divides Kashmir between
India and Pakistan] is high, stirring deep fears in South Asia and
around the world over the real possibility of conflict,” Musharraf
said, quoted by AFP.
“We
do not want war. We will not initiate a war. We have stated repeatedly
that instead of accusations, threats and dangerous escalation, India
should return to the path of dialogue and negotiations, which is the
only sane option, especially in the dangerous environment of South
Asia.”
Russian
President Vladimir Putin
and Chinese President Jiang Zemin were due to meet the two leaders
separately later Tuesday, but time was running out for any meeting
between Vajpayee and Musharraf, who is due to depart late on Tuesday.
Putin
arrived in Kazakhstan Monday, June 3, to attend the CICA conference
and help mediate between India and Pakistan in their dispute over
Kashmir.
The
CICA is the brainchild of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who
called for its creation in a speech to the United Nations in October
1992.
Having been conceived as a forum for discussing
regional stability and security with an emphasis on terrorism and
weapons of mass destruction, the conference in the Kazakh capital has
been seen as a tailor-made opportunity to defuse the tensions between
India and Pakistan over disputed Kashmir.
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