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Pakistan Slams India's Rejection Of Its Formal Dialogue Proposal
by Shah Alam
ISLAMABAD, March 31 (AFP) - Pakistan Friday criticised India's rejection of its formal proposal to relaunch peace talks and urged the world to note New Delhi's "belligerence."
Foreign Secretary Inamul Haq officially made the proposal during a meeting with Indian High Commissioner G. Parthasarathy in Islamabad on Wednesday.
It was the first time Pakistan officially proposed resumption of dialogue since the military takeover here in October, though the military ruler General Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly offered talks.
India, rejecting the proposal, insisted Pakistan must first halt its support for cross-border "terrorism" in Kashmir – a charge strongly denied by Pakistan.
The Indian refusal "reflects that India wants to continue with its belligerent attitude," Foreign Office spokesman Tariq Altaf told the official Associated Press of Pakistan. The international community should take notice of India's negative stance, Altaf said. He said General Musharraf had publicly committed himself to the resumption of talks between the two countries anywhere, at any time and at any level.
The principal issue and source of two of the three wars between Pakistan and India since 1947 is their festering row over the Himalayan state of Kashmir, split between the two and claimed by both.
After the May 1998 nuclear tests by Pakistan in reaction to those carried out by India in the same month, Kashmir is widely seen as a potential nuclear flashpoint.
Musharraf offered dialogue after talks with U.S. President Bill Clinton in Islamabad last Saturday. He called on India to take "reciprocal action" to reduce tension.
"They need to stop human rights violations there (Kashmir), they need to stop atrocities across the Line of Control [LoC] and then we can also use our influence to moderate the activities of the freedom fighters," he said.
The rival armies fought bitter battles in the Kargil mountains on the LoC last year, a few months after a landmark summit between the Indian prime minister and his then Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Lahore, Pakistan.
Sharif, who, under U.S. advice, defused the Kargil crisis by persuading Islamic fighters to withdraw from occupied Kashmir – a decision widely resented in Pakistan – was overthown in a military coup in October.
Since then tensions have been running high on the LoC, with almost daily violence in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir linked to a Muslim independence drive and exchanges of fire on the disputed border between the rival troops.
India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Kashmir. Indian leaders have frequently said talks could be held when Islamabad stopped its alleged involvement.
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