Islamabad, November 17
Pakistan said today that it was ready to talk to India to resolve Kashmir and other outstanding issues under the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration.
Referring to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s remarks in interviews to Syrian newspapers that the Kashmir issue should be solved bilaterally through the Simla accord, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said his country had “no problem with it either.”
“Mr Vajpayee said the Simla Agreement was valid. We would like to say that we are ready to talk to India under the Simla Agreement. India is using dilatory tactics to deny that there is a dispute,” he added.
When reminded that the Simla accord and the Lahore Declaration prompted the two countries to settle contentious issues through bilateral talks and not through mediation, Mr Khan claimed that UN resolutions provided a solution to the Kashmir dispute, while Simla and Lahore documents did not do so.
But at the same time talks could be started on the agreed composite formula, he said.
He said the SAARC summit in Islamabad scheduled for January would not take place if Mr Vajpayee decided not to attend it, because the SAARC charter specified that all heads of governments of the members states should attend the meet.
Mr Khan told a media briefing here that a Pakistani delegation would go to New Delhi with an open mind for talks on the issue on December 1, but at the same time, “our position on overflights remained unchanged.”
PTI
