WASHINGTON: Senate majority whip Alan Cranston has charged Iran and Saudi Arabia of supporting the separatists in Kashmir.
“I was told by sources I consider knowledgeable and reliable,” that Iran is sending arms into Kashmir, and is arming and training separatists and sending them back across the border, the sentor told a press conference Thursday. The Saudis are said to be supporting the separatists financially, he said.
Cranston, back from his visit to Pakistan and India, said he would bring his findings to the attention of President Bush. He revealed that his visit was made at the request of the two governments and with the cooperation of the U.S. state department.
The two Middle East nations apparently are embroiled in an area that for centuries has been plagued by animosities and bloodshed he observed.
India has repeatedly said that Pakistan was training and actively supporting the militants, Kashmir state, fighting for secession from India.
Cranston called upon Pakistan to “put a complete and immediate Stop to any involvement in training and arming Muslim separatists and infiltrating them into Kashmir.” “Autonomy” Cranston told the Pakistanis, “is the most that can be expected at this stage, a very significant degree of autonomy within the Indian constitution.”
He said that there was a continuing possibility of full scale war between India and Pakistan. The situation could explode once the Hindrance of meteorology ended and the passions of conflicting ideology and religion took over.
“The long standing animosities in the area have been further inflamed by the growth of Muslim.
Fundamentalism and its emphasis on the use of violence,” he said.
He was convinced after talking to prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and VP Singh, Cranston said, that neither country wanted war. “But I am equally convinced that war could come by inadvertence or miscalculation unless both sides abandon their intransigence and make basic compromises and concessions.”
Article extracted from this publication >> July 20, 1990
