M A I N   N E W S

Powell talks to Jaswant, Pervez
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 8
External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh today told the US Secretary of State Colin Powell that India would carefully assess and “respond appropriately and positively” to any steps Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf would take to check cross-border terrorism and infiltration.

Mr Jaswant Singh told Mr Powell, who called to discuss the evolving India-Pakistan situation, that India welcomes the pledge that General Musharraf had given to US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, about immediately and permanently ending cross-border infiltration of terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir.

“This is a step forward and in the right direction,” Mr Jaswant Singh said adding “its implementation on the ground will be carefully assessed, whereafter, as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has already stated, India will respond appropriately and positively.”

He said an irreversible end to infiltration requires that the infrastructure of support of cross-border terrorism within Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir be also dismantled. The External Affairs Minister asserted that “India’s commitment to lasting peace remains undiluted.”

ISLAMABAD: Mr Powell told General Musharraf over the telephone that “things are looking better now” in Pakistan’s tense relationship with India, officials said today.

“It was a very good conversation and Mr Powell told the President that things are looking better now,” an official spokesperson said.