The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Saturday, May 3, 2003, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

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M A I N N E W S

Indo-PaK move promising: Powell

Tirana (Albania), May 2
India’s decision to resume diplomatic and air links with Pakistan is “very, very promising,” US Secretary of State Colin Powell said today. “I am very pleased with developments in the subcontinent over the past several weeks,” Mr Powell said at a press conference during a brief visit to Albania. “All this is very, very promising at a time when people were beginning to wonder whether or not they were going back to the potential for conflict,” Mr Powell said. AFP

UK praises PM’s ‘true statesmanship’
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 2
The UK today praised Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s “true statesmanship” by his fresh initiative for peace in the region as reflected in Mr Vajpayee’s announcement of the decision to appoint a new High Commissioner to Islamabad and restore air links with Pakistan.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made this observation when External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha called him up today after Mr Vajpayee’s statement in Parliament. The conversation lasted 10 minutes, a Foreign Office spokesman said.

Mr Straw told Mr Sinha that the UK “warmly welcomed this step.

Pak wants proof on US terror list

Islamabad, May 2
Pakistan today demanded proof from the USA to support the placement of several Pakistan-based groups on a terrorist watch list. “If they have any evidence against the listed organisations, they must tell us and we will take action,” Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said.

The US State Department yesterday issued a list of 38 “other terrorist” groups to be watched closely, presenting it as a second-tier to its list of 36 “designated foreign terrorist organisations.”

The watch list included Hizbul Mujaheedin, Jamiatul Mujaheedin and Al-Badr Mujaheedin, all pro-Pakistan militant groups active in Kashmir.

It also included Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Sunni extremist organisation outlawed in Pakistan since January 2002, and extremists loyal to renegade Afghan Islamist commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin.

According to the State Department’s Prevention of Global Terrorism report, Hizbul was the largest Kashmiri militant group and the militant wing of Pakistan’s largest Islamic political party Jamaat-i-Islami. Al-Badr, an offshoot of Hizbul, was listed as operating in Kashmir, Pakistan and Afghanistan. AFP