INDIA
ON Thursday
India not
averse to map change
WHATISINDIA
June 11, 2004
External affairs minister K
Natwar Singh has opened a long-jammed door by saying India is not
averse to changing its border with Pakistan if that helps solve the
Kashmir tangle.
He told a BBC World interviewer
that India would consider "the possibility of some sort of
revision of boundaries, if that's what it takes to get a
solution."
Karan Thapar, anchor for the Hard Talk show, responded to Natwar
Singh’s initial tentative remarks – “We will cross the bridge
when we come to it” – by reminding him that the previous foreign
affairs minister Jaswant Singh had ruled out any redrawing of maps.
Singh replied: “We have drawn the map of the Indian subcontinent
in 1971.”
Singh, whose earlier remarks on
the Shimla Agreement had sparked off a row with Pakistan, had blamed
the media for misreporting. The BBC interview will be telecast on
Friday night.
Singh agreed India and US were
"good friends," but would not go so far as to describe
that country as a "natural ally." He also said relations
with Israel could not be at the expense of sacrificing the
legitimate rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people.
In Kashmir today, militants belonging to the Lashkar e Taiba
tortured to death four members of a family, including two women and
a child, in Udhampur district.
Police said a group of 10
militants barged into the house of Abdul Rehman and carried out the
killings. A member of the family, Farooq, had recently quit the
militant organisation and surrendered before the security forces.
Eslewhere, the army shot dead
two militants in Rajouri and Doda districts and said they had
recovered a large quantity of arms and ammunition. In Srinagar, two
militants remained holed up inside a mosque. One of their associates
and an army man were killed in a shootout.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan president
General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday called for sincerity,
flexibility and boldness to find a settlement to the Kashmir
dispute.
He told a seminar on prospects
of peace, stability and prosperity in South Asia, that the
"present time is ideal for a resolution of all Pakistan-India
issues".
He said even a limited
conventional war in a nuclearized South Asia would be
“untenable".
KABUL: US-led troops carried out
“sweeps” of former Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan Thursday.
"The operation in the
(south central) area is still going on," a military spokesman
said. Around 70 suspected militants have been killed since the
US-led operation in south central Uruzgan and south-eastern Zabul
began last week.
A US convoy survived a roadside
bomb blast in south eastern Afghanistan on Thursday with no
injuries, officials said.
WANA (Afghanistan): Attacks on
military and paramilitary forces continued for the second day in South Waziristan
as bodies of four more suspected foreign militants were found on
Thursday, taking the death toll to 41.
KARACHI: Tribal leader Nek
Muhammad has threatened to launch attacks throughout Pakistan in
retaliation to the Wana operation, a news channel has reported.
In a BBC Pushto service
interview recorded on Thursday morning, Nek said his group's
resistance to the Wana operation would spread throughout Pakistan
and Karachi would see the results before evening.
After the interview the Karachi
corps commander's cavalcade was attacked. "And wait and see
what happens in the other big cities in a few days," Nek was
quoted as saying.
KABUL: The United Nations on Thursday suspended voter registration
in the northeastern province of Kunduz after 11 Chinese road workers
were killed in an attack overnight.
The murders, which
follow a string of attacks targeting foreign and Afghan troops and
aid workers, have again raised fears whether the war-ravaged nation
can hold its first truly democratic elections as planned in
September.
Voter registration has been
under way in phases since December but officials have been concerned
about the slow pace, with so far only 3 million of an estimated 10
million eligible Afghans named on the electoral rolls.
BEIJING: China condemned the
terrorist killings of 11 Chinese workers in
Afghanistan on Thursday, but said it had no plans to pull out its
workers from the country.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has
summoned the Afghan ambassador and called for an investigation into
the attack.
The provincial governor blamed
the raid on radicals bent on destabilizing the government of
President Hamid Karzai by attacking foreign and Afghan troops as
well as aid and reconstruction workers ahead of elections in
September.
The Taliban, the main guerrilla
group opposed to Karzai's government, has denied responsibility.
CHITTAGONG: In Bangladesh, an
Islamic zealot arrested Thursday was sent to jail yesterday after a
three-day remand. Mohammad Tushar, a madrasa teacher,
was
nabbed during Thursday's bust of an alleged Harkat ul Jehad camp in
a forest region near Rangunia.
The training centre
has reportedly been in operation for more than a year. An organisation named
Islami Samajseba Parishad (Islamic social service committee) used to
run it under the guise of an agricultural farm. The hilltop centre had a tall
observation tower and trainees
used to do farm work in the day to deceive villagers and take
martial training during the night.
Overall:
Natwar Singh broke new
ground: The foreign affairs minister said
India wouldn’t mind new borders if that could resolve the Kashmir
tangle.
Musharaff agreed:
He told a seminar this was the right time for India and Pakistan to
make up.
Rebels killed Chinese
workers: Afghan militants opposed to the
Karzai government fired at a tent and killed 11 Chinese construction
workers.
Raids continued: US-led
troops put parts of Afghanistan under the scanner as they searched
for militants.
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