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Wednesday,
July 9, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Pak seeks deal with India on overflights Pak closes embassy in Afghanistan
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Musharraf looking for new PM, says report Blair stands by case to remove Saddam
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Public support in UK for Iraq war declines ‘Saddam’ tape demands covert guerrilla attacks Nepal peace talks held up
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Pak seeks deal with India on overflights Islamabad, July 8 Pakistan has suggested a meeting of civil aviation officials of the two countries to ensure that one party would not be able to withdraw overflight rights of other country, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan told reporters here yesterday as the two countries geared up to resume the Delhi-Lahore bus service from July 11. The spokesman said Pakistan had offered to restore only the flight connections between the two countries and not the overflights. A fortnight after extending a hand of friendship to Pakistan, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on May 2 announced the restoration of civil-aviation link between the two countries. However, Pakistan is yet to reciprocate. Mr Khan said Pakistan premier Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s offer of restoration of airlink in response to Mr Vajpayee’s hand of friendship was only confined to restoration of flight connections between the two countries. “Over-flights have different dimension. India since January, 2002, suspended over-flights for Pakistan and we have to react,” he said. Pakistan is mulling to send a delegation of its civil aviation officials to New Delhi in response to an invitation from India to negotiate the proposed agreement under which neither party would unilaterally withdraw overflight rights of the other, the spokesman said. “This can create a very messy situation. Air links yes. There is no automaticity for overflights. For that we will have to have a mechanism and modalities and will have to come to an agreement in accordance with international obligations and treaties,” Mr Khan said. Airlines of both countries have been incurring heavy losses due to re-routing of their flight paths. Pakistan says over 110 Indian international flights to Europe and far east have been re-routed, wasting more time and money in the process, while Pakistan Airlines has diverted over 15 of its flights. Mr Khan gave no indication when Pakistan’s civil aviation officials delegation would visit New Delhi. Currently the two countries have also not initiated any steps to restore rail-link which were also snapped along with bus and air links after the terrorist attack on Indian Parliament House. Meanwhile, the Indian High Commission here is flooded with requests for visas for the Lahore-New Delhi bus service which begins on July 11. —
PTI |
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Pak closes embassy in Afghanistan Kabul, July 8 “I have closed the mission and unless the Afghan Government compensates, apologises and gives a concrete guarantee for the protection of the mission in future, it will remain closed,” he told reporters as he stood gingerly on shards of glass in the Embassy. “We hold the Afghan Government responsible for what has happened for the fourth time in 15 years,” he said. “We hold the Afghan Government responsible not only for its negligence but also for stage-managing this show, for creating the environment in which such an attack would take place and then fail to act swiftly to prevent the damage,” he said. The Ambassador said the mob was well-organised, bringing a truck full of stones with which to attack the Embassy, while the Afghan guards assigned to protect the mission actually helped the attackers. Staff said a mob, which consisted of around 300 Afghans, smashed the Embassy gate and ransacked the mission, which was located in the upmarket Wazir Akbar Khan district of north Kabul. Eight Embassy cars had their windows smashed while television sets, computers and windows were also destroyed, including those in the Ambassador’s office. Embassy staff also showed a Pakistani flag which, they said, had been set on fire by protesters. —
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Musharraf looking for new PM, says report Islamabad, July 8 Mr Musharraf was contemplating major changes in the government, including replacing Mr Jamali and appointing a new Prime Minister, Pakistan’s ‘Newsline’ magazine reported in its latest issue released today. Mr Jamali appeared to be on the way out barely six months after he took over as he failed to break the stranglehold of the Opposition on Mr Musharraf’s Legal Framework Order, which contained his constitutional reforms. While Mr Musharraf himself continued to deny such speculation, the buzz about Mr Jamali being replaced was not without basis, the magazine said. “The President’s men are already exploring a way out of the present standoff that has paralysed the new political setup,” the magazine said. Prominent front-runners for the post included the present Commerce Minister Humayun Akthar and Finance Minister Shoukat Aziz, according to the magazine. Mr Akthar, son of a retired former ISI chief was also frontrung elected members of the ruling PML-Q from Pakistan’s biggest province, Punjab, while Mr Jamali hails from the South West Baluchistan province, which is the smallest of the four provinces. Mr Aziz, a former Executive of the City Bank, was also front runner for the PM’s post as he had strong personal links with US Administration. —
PTI |
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Military balance key to peace: Pak Islamabad, July 8 Peace in this South Asian region will be through the resolution of all political disputes, including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute,” he said while speaking at a college function here. However, before peace is achieved through the resolution of political disputes, there has to be a balance in conventional and non-conventional means of power “and this balance must never be disturbed in the interest of the peace in the region,” he said. Pakistan, he claimed, was following the strategy of minimum defensive deterrence, adding that the country was not in the arms race but would maintain such a deterrence at all levels. Mr Musharraf said to achieve the ultimate peace the two countries would have to reach political resolution of all disputes. In his address at the college, Mr Musharraf also denied allegations that Pakistan indulged in nuclear proliferation. He insisted that his country’s nuclear arsenal was under tight control and would not fall into “wrong hands”. Meanwhile, in his weekly press briefing, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan accused India of accelerating arms purchases. Referring to reports of India shelving plans to develop Trishul missile, he said “We are concerned about India’s purchases. We should not have an acceleration of arms purchases in South Asia.” —
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Blair stands by case to remove Saddam London, July 8 “I stand by that case totally. I am quite sure we did the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein,” Mr Blair told Parliament’s Liaison Committee, comprising the chairmen of all House of Commons watchdog select committees. The Liaison Committee was today questioning Mr Blair about the case he made for the Iraq war as well as on domestic issues. Asked if he regretted anything done in the lead-up to the war, Mr Blair pointed to the way an academic thesis had been used without attribution in February’s “dodgy dossier”. “I am quite sure we did the right thing because not merely was it a threat to the region and the wider world, but it was an appalling regime which the world is well rid of... I refute any suggestion that we misled Parliament and the people totally,” he said. Despite the concerns raised about the September dossier, Mr Blair said he did not concede at all that the intelligence reports at the time were wrong. “But I should tell you that I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes.” The House of Commons Committee report yesterday said Mr Blair had inadvertently misrepresented the “dodgy dossier” in Parliament by suggesting it was “further intelligence”. —
PTI |
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Public support in UK for Iraq war declines London, July 8 The poll, by the Populus organisation, was conducted after a month of allegations — denied by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government — that Downing Street doctored intelligence data to beef up the case for war. A report from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday, after two weeks of hearings, criticised Blair for the way he presented the case for joining the US-led war that began March 20. But it also concluded that his government did not mislead the nation over the threat posed by the now-deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. —
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‘Saddam’ tape demands covert guerrilla attacks Dubai, July 8 “Returning to covert attacks is the appropriate means for resistance,’’ the voice on the poor-quality tape said. “Your main mission, Iraqis, is to evict the invaders from Iraqi territory,” it added. The tape appeared to be the same as the one aired earlier by Lebanon’s al-Hayat-LBC satellite television. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the identity of the speaker or of when the tape was prepared. —
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Nepal peace talks held up Kathmandu, July 8 Four facilitators, two appointed by each side, had spent the last few days in meetings with both government officials and Maoists to spur on fresh negotiations, they said. The Maoist demand that troops be restricted to moving within five km from their barracks had stymied the facilitators’ efforts, the sources added. Asked about the dispute, Bharat Dhungana of the Maoists’ information office in Kathmandu said, “The release of prisoners and restricting the movement of troops to five km are priorities before the peace talks.” He rejected a counter-demand from the army that troop movement would be restricted only if the Maoists first turned over weapons looted from troops over the seven-year insurgency. —
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