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Pak. takes exception to ARF communique

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD Aug 1. Islamabad today took exception to the communique by the ASEAN Region Forum on Pakistan-India tension and said the Forum should have directed its counsel to India to end "repression" in Kashmir and sit across the table with Pakistan to settle the issue.

A spokesman of the Pakistan Foreign Ministry said that it would have been appropriate for the ARF to call upon India to "end its repression in the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir as well as find a just settlement of the Kashmir dispute through negotiations''. The statement said the resolution of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan would remove a "dangerous source of continuing tension and threat to peace in the region". The ARF communique at Brunei on Wednesday called on Pakistan for "an urgent end to all terrorist activities in the region as an essential step to de-escalate the situation.''

``While welcoming its commitment to counter terrorism, Ministers earnestly looked to Pakistan to take urgent steps to implement it,'' the ARF statement said.Islamabad is also piqued over the reported Indian stand taken at the meeting that it will continue to block Pakistan from becoming a member of the forum until it became a democratic state and stopped using terrorism as "state policy''. The Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, has been quoted as saying that a consensus had to prevail among the 23 nations of the ASEAN Regional Forum to make Pakistan a member, and that India would not consent unless Pakistan met the conditions.

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