NEW DELHI: Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto asserted “‘our objective is peace in the region.”
Participating in a program “‘one Asia assembly” telecast by the state run Indian TV network, Doordarshan, Bhutto said so much was required to be done in terms of regional social and economic reforms.
External affairs minister Inder Kumar Gujral, who also participated in the program, observed that the Kashmir question was being projected (by Pakistan) out of context.
Basically the Kashmir problem was an internal problem that India was trying to cope with but all the same, he said, the 1971 Shimla agreement between the two nations provided the methodology to sort out the issue.
Gujral said he did not foresee any cut in the defense expenditure in the next three to four years. This was a challenging task, he said.
On the nuclear issue, Gujral stressed the need for revising the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to invite the threshold countries to participate in the non-proliferation process.
“Let us keep in mind that proliferation is not endangered only by the threshold countries but also by those who are already members of the club,” he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 2, 1990
