The Hindu : Pak. trying to secure Kashmir through terrorism: Advani

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 14, 2003

Front Page

Front Page

Pak. trying to secure Kashmir through terrorism: Advani

CHICAGO JUNE 13. Providing a tough reminder of the changing realities to the United States, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, has said that Pakistan is now the "hotbed" of the Al-Qaeda and charged it with trying to secure Kashmir through terrorism after failing to get it in three wars.

"Pakistan had all along been and continues to be a source of terrorism primarily against India but whose reverberations are also felt elsewhere," Mr. Advani said in hard-hitting speeches at two separate functions here on Thursday.

He said that both India and the U.S. were threatened by the same source of terrorism.

Mr. Advani advised Pakistani leaders against holding peace hostage to the resolution of their differences with India and challenged them to take a pledge to solve all issues through negotiations. "There has to be give and take in negotiations,' he said and urged Pakistan to "sincerely" implement its own promises of putting a complete halt to cross-border terrorism against India and dismantling the terrorist infrastructure which it had "fostered over many years".

Despite being a target of relentless terrorism, India had extended a hand of friendship to Pakistan, which was appreciated the world over, Mr. Advani told the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations and later a large dinner meeting of the Indian community here.

He said that the U.S. President, George W. Bush, during discussions with him had appreciated the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's initiative and promised to take up the issue of cross-border terrorism with Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, scheduled to visit Washington later this month.

Pakistani leaders had thought of supporting terrorism as a way of "bleeding India and eventually achieving their aim" of securing Kashmir, he said, adding, "which is why, terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir was advertised as a freedom struggle. The futility of this dangerous course is now more clearly known than ever before."

But the Kashmiri people, Mr. Advani said, had given a strong rebuff to Pakistan's claims by participating in a big way in last year's Assembly elections despite threats by terrorists to kill the candidates as well as those who campaigned for them.

Although India had the second-largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia, none of the Al-Qaeda operatives caught by the U.S. belonged to it, Mr. Advani said.

The reason, he said, was that India was a democracy where everyone had the right to express his or her views and no one was discriminated against on the basis of religion.

Referring to the cooperation between India and the U.S. in the fight against terrorism, he said there was now a "profound realisation" in both the countries that the survival of the values cherished by them depended on a "firm and uncompromising" posture towards terrorism wherever it reared its head. — PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page

Stories in this Section

Pak. trying to secure Kashmir through terrorism: Advani

`Cross-border terrorism has not ended'

Musharraf `more than willing' to meet Vajpayee

Rao Govt.'s decision to ban VHP was correct: Centre

BJP for early LS elections?

Cong. men open fire, 8 injured

Sharad Yadav manhandled

U.S. forces kill 27 Iraqis

Talhan shrine vacated