NEW DELHI, 31 October 2003 — India yesterday accused Pakistan of “delaying” tactics after Islamabad gave a lukewarm response to New Delhi’s proposals to improve ties between the rival neighbors.
“We welcome the fact that Pakistan has responded positively to at least some of the proposals announced by our external affairs minister on Oct. 22,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.
“We are disappointed that they have attached impractical, extraneous or delaying conditions to the others,” it said.
Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha on Oct. 22 proposed 12 measures to help normalize relations between the two countries, strained since a December 2001 attack by Islamic militants on the Indian Parliament.
One proposal was to begin a bus service from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad, capitals respectively of the Indian and Pakistani-ruled sections of Kashmir, which is disputed between the two countries and was the cause of two of their three wars.
Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar said on Wednesday in Islamabad that any movement of people between the two sectors of Kashmir should be “controlled” by the United Nations. Khokhar welcomed confidence-building measures but said they needed to be part of a wide-ranging dialogue between India and Pakistan to resolve the half-century-old Kashmir dispute.
But India says such bilateral talks cannot resume until Pakistan halts its alleged support for Islamic rebels in Kashmir, where tens of thousands have died since 1989.
The Indian statement said the Kashmir bus and an Indian proposed ferry service between Bombay and Karachi “would have facilitated (a) widening of people-to-people contacts and cooperation.”
“Holding up such simple steps and making them part of the composite dialogue process in effect means delaying them,” the statement said, adding that India’s motivation for the proposal was “humanitarian.”
“It is unfortunate that Pakistan has instead opted to politicize and disrupt this (humanitarian effort) by attaching conditions that they knew would not be acceptable,” it said.
Defense Minister George Fernandes earlier yesterday also denounced Pakistan’s push for UN involvement in a Kashmir bus service.
“What is the UN going to do on the roads which are meant for the common people. What have they got to do there? It is meaningless,” Fernandes said.
Analysts view the Kashmir bus service as an Indian attempt to formalize Kashmir’s ceasefire line into an official border, in effect renouncing Pakistan’s contention that the whole province is disputed territory.India however welcomed Pakistan’s willingness to hold talks on revival of their civil aviation links. “We hope Pakistan will come to talks with an open mind and they will be successful,” the statement said.
