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| Thursday, July 5, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Musharraf ready for
no war pact New Delhi, July 4 In an interview to Zee TV, General Musharraf said, “India has offered no first use of nuclear weapons. I am ready to go one step ahead... for a no war pact.” On his upcoming summit with Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee, General Musharraf said the July 15 Agra meeting would be “incomplete” without the involvement of the Hurriyat in the talks and the earlier they were involved the better. “I think it (the talks) will remain incomplete without them. I think they should be allowed to meet me at least and may be involved in the dialogue process at some stage if we make some progress on the Kashmir issue... because the solution is not possible without their wishes and desires being ascertained,” he said. General Musharraf said any solution to the Kashmir issue must involve the wishes of
Kashmiris. He emphasised the need to address the Kashmir issue in the initial stages and move towards its resolution before getting involved in peripheral issues. “Certainly we would be quite impractical if we reach something which is not
implementable.” The General, however, refused to divulge what he had in mind on the issue as he prepared for the summit. Replying to a question on Kargil and the confidence shattered by the incident, the President said, “We must not live in history... we are opening a Pandora’s box.” Stressing the need for not succumbing to unnecessary rhetoric which disturbed the environment before the conference, he called for desisting from making contentious statements. On why there had been no talk about Simla Agreement or Lahore Declaration, he said Pakistan did contribute to all agreements starting with the 1948 UN Resolution which Islamabad needed to adhere to. General Musharraf, however, said he would like to go a step further as a lot had changed since Lahore and
Simla. Both countries were nuclear powers and both had realised that it was time for taking bold decisions.
UNI
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3-tier security for summit New Delhi, July 4 Security officials said a three-tier security ring would envelop the three hotels, Amar Vilas, Jaypee Palace and the Mughal Sheraton, which will be fully sanitised and swept with electronic devices. The entry to these hotels and particularly to the floors reserved for VIPs will be restricted and only authorised personnel with special ID tags will be allowed there. A fleet of helicopters, some of them equipped with sophisticated monitoring equipment, will keep an aerial vigil over the hotels and in their vicinity to spot any trouble spots. Manned by senior security officials, these aerial observation posts will be in constant touch with their counterparts on the ground. While at Amar Vilas, where the Pakistan President is expected to stay, the inner cordon of security will be exclusively manned by personnel of Pakistan’s secret service, the suites at Jaypee Palace ear-marked for Mr Vajpayee will be taken over by personnel of the elite Special Protection Group
(SPG). A special control room set up for the summit will coordinate the arrangements. Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh police, which will be providing personnel for the outer ring, has started an extensive exercise to keep track of subversives and anti-social elements who could cause trouble during the two-day summit. A number of known “bad” characters have been taken into preventive custody as a precautionary measure. The managements of the hotels and guest-houses in the city have also been asked to keep their eyes open for suspicious persons. “Since Agra is a tourist city a large number of people arrive there every day from other states. As such, vigil on the borders and approach roads is also being stepped up”, a senior security officer said.
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Pervez’s suite being spruced up Chandigarh, July 4 Putting all speculation to rest in this regard, Mr Rajesh Jhingon, General Manager of Amar Vilas, told The Tribune this evening that the General, Begum Musharraf and the Pakistani delegation would be at Amar Vilas, which was just about 600 metres from the Taj. An entire commodious suite is being further spruced up.
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