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Pak. seeks `neutral' probe into Nadimarg massacre

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD APRIL 1. Pakistan has reiterated its proposal to India for a "neutral and impartial" investigation into the massacre of the 24 Kashmiri Pandits and other such incidents.

The Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, told his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, over the weekend that "motive" constituted an important factor in all acts of such nature. "Manifestly, such incidents are not in the interest of Pakistan or the Kashmiri freedom struggle," he told Mr. Villepin, when he telephoned him to discuss the situation in South Asia.

It was some kind of a diplomatic initiative by Mr. Villepin, in the wake of escalation of war of words between Islamabad and New Delhi. A press statement put out by the Mr. Kasuri, on the contact between him and Mr. Villepin, does indicate that the latest killings in Kashmir and the charges of increased level of infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) did figure prominently.

In his talk with Mr. Villepin, Mr. Kasuri complained that while Pakistan had taken a number of initiatives to start a composite dialogue with India, New Delhi had `unfortunately' chosen not to reciprocate for reasons of its own domestic electoral requirements.

Mr. Kasuri told the French Foreign Minister that Pakistan had condemned the attack on innocent Kashmir's on February 24 and deplored the "baseless" allegations by India, blaming Pakistan for the attack. Pakistan had always condemned attacks carried out against innocent civilians and in the past, had offered joint investigations to the Government of India, to probe such terrorist acts. "Regrettably India had always rejected such offers of Pakistan''.

In a related development, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry expressed surprise at what was as "absurd assertion" by the Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, in Moscow recently, that Pakistan carried out the Nadimarg massacre to deflect domestic pressure over its Iraq policy.

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