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US, EU ask Pak to ensure J&K
polls are free of violence

G Sudhakar Nair in Bandar Seri Bagwan (Brunei)

In a stern message to Pakistan, the US and the European Union on Wednesday said it was incumbent upon Islamabad to ensure an atmosphere free of violence in the run up to elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

Signalling the importance attached by the US and the EU to see that elections were not disrupted by terrorist strikes, Secretary of State Colin Powell and EU's representative for foreign affairs Javier Solana said that Pakistan must stop its support to cross-border terrorism in J&K.

"Pakistan must cease support to cross-border terrorism and it is incumbent on Pakistan to ensure an atmosphere free of violence for the elections," Powell told a security gathering of 23 western and Asian nations under the aegis of the ASEAN Regional Forum.

External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said cross-border terrorism must be recognised as the core problem in South Asia.

He said India was always ready for a dialogue with Pakistan and would restart the process the moment it realised that Islamabad had put a stop to cross-border terrorism and dismantled terrorist infrastructure.

A Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson briefing reporters on the ARF ministers' statements said Powell also referred to how both India and the US agreed that infiltration of militants from Pakistan had not stopped though it had gone down.

Powell and Sinha had a brief interaction at the venue of the seventh meeting of the ARF before Asia's biggest security gathering got down to deliberate on a range of issues.

The Indo-Pak standoff came up for discussion at the bilateral meetings Sinha had with Solana and his counterparts Tang Jiaxuan of China, Kawaguchi of Japan and Bill Graham of Canada.

Tang said China wanted very much to see reduction in tensions between India and Pakistan and that it was opposed to violence in Kashmir.

"China is always opposed to terrorism in all its forms," Tang told Sinha and observing that as a friend and neighbour of South Asia, Beijing would like to see differences between New Delhi and Islamabad resolved by peaceful meas.

Sinha told the Chinese minister that any failure by the international community to refer to cross-border terrorism in the context of the South Asian situation would be regarded by India as a "very serious omission."

He said the international community must realise that terrorism cannot be an instrument of state policy as it is in Pakistan.

At the ARF meeting, Powell said he was moved when Sinha said that while India was endeavouring to improve the lives of the people and provide prosperity, it also had to fight a battle against terrorists.

PTI

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