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Indian PM Rules Out Talks With Pakistan
Arab News, Agencies
JAMMU, 30 August 2003 — Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday ruled out talks with rival Pakistan until terrorist attacks in India end and the atmosphere for a “meaningful” dialogue is created.
“Whatever happened (on Thursday) shows that there is no normalcy,” Vajpayee told reporters on his arrival in the winter capital Jammu after a violent two days in the summer capital, Srinagar, where an attack on a hotel by militants left four people dead.
“I was asked why talks are not starting and you yourself are saying that terrorist attacks are taking place,” he said in response to a question about the hotel incident. “How can you have talks without normalcy?”
He added: “In so many years, the Kashmir problem has not been resolved. How can it happen instantly? Talks have not even begun. People are dying in terrorist violence. How can you have meaningful talks now?”
Flanked by five extra security force battalions, Vajpayee arrived in late morning at Jammu’s military airport and was greeted by Kashmir’s Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed before he was whisked into a heavily guarded motorcade that rushed through empty streets.
A police spokesman said security restrictions on passenger transport curtailed the usual traffic, while pedestrians were being frisked along the route of the motorcade and all buses were being searched.
During his last visit to the state in April, Vajpayee made the first tentative steps toward reconciliation and announced that India wished to resume dialogue with Pakistan after an 18-month stalemate.
Since then, the two neighbors have resumed diplomatic ties and road links, snapped after a deadly attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001. New Delhi blamed Pakistan’s spy agency and Pakistan-based rebel groups for the suicide attack that claimed 14 lives. Pakistan and the guerrilla groups denied involvement.
Vajpayee’s comments yesterday are a setback to the likelihood of an early summit-level meeting of the rival South Asian nations. Top leaders from both sides were widely expected to meet on the sidelines of a regional meeting scheduled to be held in Islamabad early next year.
Vajpayee said that the scale of violence along the international border between India and Pakistan had declined marginally, mainly because India had tightened security along the 2,900-km (1,800-mile) frontier. But violence was still a problem, and terrorist attacks like recent ones in Bombay continued, he said.
“If Pakistan says it is not involved in terrorist attacks, then, we need to find out which is the other organization out there that is carrying out these attacks,” Vajpayee said. Militants have been fighting since 1989 for the independence of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, or its merger with overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan. More than 63,000 people have been killed in the insurgency.
India accuses Pakistan of arming, training and funding the militants, who cross over into Indian territory and mount attacks on security forces and civilians. Pakistan denies the charge, saying it only offers the rebels political and diplomatic support.
At least 52 people were killed in twin car bomb attacks in Bombay on Monday, which India has blamed on the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant organization based in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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