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Pervez hints at solutions to Kashmir issue
Pak media terms talks with Hurriyat Pakistan under nuclear cloud Dhindsa to discuss Gulf airfare issue with PM
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2 US soldiers die in Iraq copter crash Israeli forces kill 2 Palestinians
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Pervez hints at solutions to Kashmir issue Davos, January 24 President Musharraf while speaking to reporters at a breakfast meeting at the World Economic Forum, said, “We have taken a big step forward” in setting the stage for negotiations between the two countries. He declined to give details about the solutions that he had in mind. “I find Mr Vajpayee to be a very balanced leader. I give him credit for his boldness,” he said, and added that the two sides would have to show “flexibility” and “boldness.” He said now was not the time to discuss solutions, but that would come when the two sides start a “composite dialogue on all issues.” Seeking to address what he called “misperceptions” about Pakistan, President Musharraf also said the country’s nuclear technology was well guarded by the National Command Authority. “We have not left any stone unturned to ensure the security of all our assets,” he said. The President told The Associated Press after the meeting that if anything happened to him the nuclear assets would still be well-protected. “Yes, it will be. The security of all this is a military responsibility. As long as the military of Pakistan remains nothing can go wrong,” he said. Meanwhile, he lifted the curtain on his country’s covert nuclear weapons programme, and said Europeans should be investigated along with Pakistani scientists on who may have sold secrets abroad for “personal gain.” He noted that Pakistan was investigating whether individuals in the government knew about the security leak. President Musharraf said the covert programme was started about 30 years ago after India conducted nuclear tests. Scientists were given “freedom of action” to develop the technology. “It could succeed only if there was total autonomy and nobody knew about it. That is how it continued,” he said. “Now if there was some individual or individuals who for personal gain wanted to sell national assets ... it could be possible because it was not under strategic check and controls.” The investigation began after Iran disclosed the names of people who provided them with nuclear technology, and they included Pakistani scientists, he said. “There are European countries involved in the refining and producing fissile material. It is high-class metallurgy. Where is it available? In Europe. So why is no one talking about it? I wonder what is happening to the others,” he added.
— AP |
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Pak media terms talks with Hurriyat as landmark
Islamabad, January 24 “From all accounts, the landmark contact between the Hurriyat Conference and the Indian Government in New Delhi on Thursday went well. It was followed yesterday by a meeting between the Hurriyat leaders and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in another ground-breaking development,” the local daily ‘Dawn’ said in an editorial. It said the tone reflected in the joint statement issued after the discussions between Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and Hurriyat leaders was “positive.” The key sentence in the statement would seem to be the one that reflects the two sides’ agreement on ending “all forms of violence at all levels”, the paper said. It said assertions by senior Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has indicated that India might halt its military operations against militants next month. The paper said the next round of talks between the Hurriyat and the Indian Government to be held in March would assume more significance if the India-Pakistan composite dialogue scheduled to be held next month look off well. “If the going is good, as everyone hopes and prays it will be, further negotiations involving the Hurriyat will assume more substance.” “The meeting between Mr Vajpayee and President Musharraf in Islamabad undoubtedly spurred a search for possible solution to the Kashmir imbroglio,” the paper said. It also said the Hurriyat leaders should be allowed to visit Pakistan and meet their counterparts. “The signs are that we are moving in the right direction. The earnest wish is that nothing will happen to throw everything out of joint again.” Another Pakistan daily ‘The Nation’ said in its editorial that the talks ended on a “positive” note for India and Hurriyat leaders. “The fact that only one of the two factions of the divided Hurriyat was represented at the talks would raise questions regarding the representative character of the delegation despite those meeting Mr Advani being known as
Kashmiri leaders, two of them being the former chairs of what was till last year a united Hurriyat. However, since the Hurriyat has consistently boycotted the sham electoral process in Kashmir, the Indian Government’s dealing with them is in itself a advance,” it said.
— PTI |
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Pakistan under nuclear cloud Pakistan’s nuclear programme and its clandestine leaking of nuclear technology to several countries has been hogging international headlines of late. At least six nuclear scientists of Pakistan have come under the international scanner and the country has admitted to their sustained interrogation. Islamabad’s cup of woes was up to the brim when the New York Times on January 11 posted on its website a sales brochure for nuclear components available to qualified buyers from Pakistan’s top secret
A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (named after the so-called father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme). The technologies offered were critical for building high-quality uranium enrichment facilities, and the glossy brochure. Pakistan has evidently misled the US and the world with respect to its proliferation responsibilities. Critics in the US say that Pakistan, a major ally in the war against terrorism, is giving nuclear technology to three countries on Washington’s list of terror exporters. This is an embarrassment to President George Bush, who has given top priority to keeping weapons of mass destruction away from the terrorists and rogue states. Pakistan has stockpiled fissile material consisting of weapons-grade uranium. Its primary uranium enrichment plant is located at A.Q. Khan Research Laboratory in Kahuta, while other experimental scale enrichment facilities are located at Sihai and Golra Sharif. In all, Pakistan has a stockpile of between 460 and 785 kg of highly enriched uranium, which is sufficient to make about 25 nuclear weapons. In addition, Pakistan is trying to obtain weapons-grade plutonium by extracting it from spent reactor fuel at its nuclear centres in Rawalpindi and
Chasma. Pakistan’s nuclear programme has been focused almost entirely on weapons technology, especially the production of enriched uranium. Since December 2003, there were reports that Pakistan had detained three top nuclear scientists for questioning. Until then, Pakistani officials had refrained from publicly discussing the reason for detention. These Pakistani officials broke their silence following reports published in the Washington Post and the New York Times, which said Pakistanis had shared technology with North Korea and possibly other countries. The two US dailies gave details of the possible involvement of Pakistani scientists from
A.Q. Khan Laboratories in providing Iran with designs for the centrifuge to enrich uranium, which is a key ingredient of nuclear weapons, in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Pakistan’s atomic bomb expert Dr Abdul Qadir Khan, US officials believe, has visited Libya, Iran and North Korea frequently since 1984. Dr Khan was interrogated in December 2003 after questions were raised by the UN nuclear watchdog. |
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Dhindsa to discuss Gulf airfare issue with PM Dubai, January 24 “I will take up the matter with the Prime Minister, the Civil Aviation Minister and the Tourism Minister and I am sure something can be done about it,” Mr Dhindsa said on the sidelines of the World Punjabi Convention being held here. “The Prime Minister has announced several concessions (in the India-Lanka sector) recently and he will also consider this issue,” Mr Dhindsa said pointing out that a large number of expatriates in the Gulf also came from north India. The Minister was responding when it was pointed out to him that India got only less than one per cent of World Tourist arrivals and a major reason was exhorbitant airfares from the Gulf to India compared to the fares from the Gulf to Europe or the Far-East route which was much longer.
— PTI |
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2 US soldiers die in Iraq copter crash Baghdad, January 24 The OH-58 Kiowa chopper, attached to the 101st Airborne Division, went down northwest of the city of Kayyarah, killing the two crew on board last night, the spokesman said. The cause of the crash was not immediately known but an accompanying helicopter did not report “hostile activities,” he added. It was the fourth such crash since the beginning of January.
— AFP |
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Israeli forces kill 2 Palestinians Gaza, January 24 An army spokesman said the Palestinians were shot as they approached the soldiers who suspected the men intended to set off an explosive charge. The medics said the bodies of the two men, shot in the head and legs, were brought to a hospital. They said the men were wearing the combat fatigues of Palestinian militants, but no group claimed the two as members.
— Reuters |
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Davos, January 24
In
Video: Pak knew about nuclear proliferation: Albright
Washington. (
Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa today said he would take up with the Prime Minister the issue of high airfares charged by national carriers in the Gulf sector so as to give a boost to tourism.
