NEW DELHI: The government denied that India and Pakistan had reached an agreement on the withdrawal of troops from Siachin.
The spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs told newsmen that the suggestions that the two Foreign Secretaries had reached an agreement on Siachin were “incorrect.”
He said the only agreement that was arrived at during the recently concluded Indo-Pak talks was that the Defence Secretaries of the two countries would meet in October this year to “carry forward the process of negotiations on Siachin which have remained suspended since June 1989 when the Defence Secretaries last met,”
He said the Defence Secretaries would be accompanied by sides, both civilian and military.
The Pakistan Foreign Secretary Shantyar Khan was quote in a Delhi newspaper recently as saying that India and Pakistan had agreed to pull back their troops from Siachen.
He said that the modalities of this pull back were to be negotiated when the Defence Secretaries met later this year,
The newspaper report had quoted him as saying that his understanding was that troops would be pulled back to the 1972 position. At that lime, neither country had any troops in Siachen.
The spokesman said the suggestions made by Khan were amount to floating a balloon.” They not in any way reflect internal regiment thinking or any aspect government policy, he asserted.
Shahrayar Khan had also missed the four-point formula when he was questioned about it during a press conference in New Delhi recently.
No government would take positions on opinions pressed introditorials and articles he had said, adding that governments should, however, be aware of them.
Referring to another newspaper report which said that the US had stated a non-official proposal to host a camp David type of conference for the resolution of the Kashmir route, the MEA spokesman said as for the question of US intervention on mediation on the issue does not matter.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 4, 1992
