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Pak. surprised at rejection of third-party mediation

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD June 27. The Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid M. Kasuri, tonight expressed "surprise" at the reported statement of the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, rejecting third party mediation or facilitation for resolution of Kashmir, and said India had rightly accepted the "use of facilitation" on many occasions in the past.

In a statement here, Mr. Kasuri said the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, during his recent visit to Washington had discussed issues relating to Pakistan and Kashmir with the U.S. administration.

Mr. Kasuri argued that both Pakistan and India were large countries and could not be pressured by any country. "We must get out of any complexes and hangovers and express our gratitude to the international community for being concerned about the fate of 1.3 billion people of South Asia".

He said Pakistan was prepared to discuss the "long-running Kashmir dispute" with India in a bilateral or multilateral setting. Mr. Kasuri claimed that Pakistan was very serious regarding the initiation of a dialogue with India and it was for this reason that the Pakistan Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, had offered a package of wide-ranging confidence-building measures, after the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, "very wisely" agreed to withdraw some of the unilateral actions India had initiated.

Mr. Sinha was reacting to a reference attributed to President Musharraf's comments regarding a road map on Kashmir to a suggestive question during an interview with ABC TV network. Mr. Kasuri said the President, Musharraf, had since Agra been repeatedly stressing the need for the resumption of a composite dialogue with India, which would address all outstanding issues of concern, including Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr. Kasuri said he did not find anything wrong in the efforts of the U.N., the U.S., European Union, China, G-8, and many other countries to try to reduce tension in South Asia. "All such efforts and initiative should be looked at in a positive light, as expression of concern for the people of South Asia rather than seeing it as unwanted intervention."

He said Pakistan was very serious on resumption of a composite dialogue with India as soon as possible. For this, he said there was no external "road map".

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