The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Saturday, July 20, 2002, Chandigarh, India

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Perceptions differ on LoC
Straw meets Brajesh, Sinha
Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw meets with Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha at his office in New Delhi on Friday.
— Tribune photo Mukesh Aggarwal

New Delhi, July 19
Even as British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw launched his new phase of South Asia diplomacy today and held consultations with Indian leaders to ease Indo-Pak tensions, New Delhi made it clear to him that it had taken enough de-escalatory measures and now the ball was in Islamabad’s court.

Mr Straw is understood to have discussed a set of some specific and new proposals with the Indian leaders aimed at de-escalating tensions on the Indo-Pak border which Mr Straw had recently described as “still dangerous”.

Well-placed sources here said both Principal Secretary to Prime Minister and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, whom Mr Straw met today, told him categorically that New Delhi did not agree to his perception that cross-border infiltration had declined along the Line of Control (LoC).

In fact, New Delhi passed on a subtle diplomatic message to Mr Straw as both Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani expressed inability to meet him. It is understood that Mr Straw was eager to call on Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani.

However, the sources said, “An air of expectancy still hangs in the air here from Mr Straw’s visit as he is returning here tomorrow night from Pakistan and is likely to meet some Indian leaders then.”

Mr Straw leaves the Capital for Islamabad tomorrow morning where he is to have talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Though both New Delhi and London are trying to downplay the significance of the last-minute rescheduling of his visit to the subcontinent the sources disclosed that Mr Straw was going to brief External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and maybe some other top Indian leader about the outcome of his talks with General Musharraf.

According to the sources, New Delhi today made it clear to Mr Straw that India had announced a series of de-escalatory measures last month specifically in response to certain commitments made by General Musharraf and conveyed to India by the US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Richard Armitage.

But the situation is back to square one as far as the two major Indian demands from Pakistan — putting a complete and permanent end to cross-border infiltration and dismantling of terrorism infrastructure in that country — are concerned.

Therefore, Pakistan would have to take visible and concrete measures to address the two major Indian concerns.

Mr Straw, while taking questions at his news conference in the evening, admitted that as far as Pakistan was concerned: “There are further steps that need to be taken before we can hope for an active dialogue (between India and Pakistan).”

Mr Jack Straw made it clear that his country wanted to see Pakistan putting a permanent end to cross-border infiltration from across the Line of Control (LoC).

At the press conference, Mr Straw made sure of not speaking anything against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. His measured and diplomatic answer to questions about Gen Musharraf’s true intentions was: “Gen Musharraf has expressed his determination that he would clamp down on terrorism within Pakistan and on infiltration across the LoC.”

In response to a question, he did say that Pakistan needed to take further steps “before we can have an active dialogue” between India and Pakistan.

Mr Straw was at his diplomatic best while talking about the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir. “India has a commendable record (in tackling human rights in J & K). We will continue to encourage India to improve its human rights record, particularly on the investigation side.”

He pointed out that on his previous visit he had stated here on May 29 that an Indo-Pak war was “not inevitable” and in this context he mentioned that the tensions had somewhat decreased.

Meanwhile, the UK today rejected India’s demand to declare Pakistan a terrorist state.

“We don’t have any laws under which we can declare a country as a terrorist state,” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said at a press conference here.

Mr Straw said Britain had definite laws to declare individual groups as terrorist outfits. This had been done in the case of Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Straw assailed for arms sales to India, Pak

London, July 19
Lawmakers criticised Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a report published today for failing to block arms sales to India and Pakistan during the standoff over Kashmir.

A joint report by four House of Commons committees — foreign affairs, defence, trade and industry and international development said Mr Straw failed to apply government guidelines banning weapons exports where there was a risk they could be used for external aggression.

The lawmakers said they were surprised that Mr Straw did not personally examine export licence applications to the region during the period of heightened tension between the two countries in May and June.

In a letter to the committee, Mr Straw said 148 licences had been issued to India during the period and another 18 to Pakistan, but that he had not personally been involved.

The lawmakers said the standoff over Kashmir should have triggered criterion four of the government’s guidelines which forbids arms exports where there is a clear risk that they could be used “aggressively against another country.” AP