MADRAS: High commissioner of Pakistan to India Riaz Khokhar, On Sept.1, said it was his country’s ‘right’ to internationalize the Kashmir issue, as there was nothing against intemnationalizing it in the Simla agreement.
“All that the Simla agreement says is that India and Pakistan should talk to each other and resolve the issue, but nowhere does it say that the issue should not be raised in international fora,” Khokhar said at a meet the press Program organized here by the Madras Press Club.
He alleged that, not even once since the Simla agreement was signed in 1972, did India invite Pakistan to discuss and resolve the Kashmir issue under the agreement. The initiative, he said, always came from Pakistan.
He took pains to emphasize that Pakistan did want to hold talks under the Simla agreement. In July last, the then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had written to P.V.Narasimha Rao, proposing talks under the agreement.
On the issue of Pakistan encouraging terrorism in India, Khokhar said his country had nothing to do with terrorist activities in India, and that it had become a “fancy’ for India to blame Pakistan for every misfortune that befell it, India had not provided a “shred of evidence’ connecting Pakistan with terrorism in India, he claimed, adding, ‘we are aware of India’s military might and its capacity to harm its neighbors, and we are not fools to meddle with it”
With regard to the Bombay bomb blasts, he categorically denied that the Memon brothers were in Pakistan. He said the Pakistani govemment had set up a task force to go into the matter of the brothers’ presence there, but after detailed investigation, no evidence to support this theory was found.
Khokhar felt that the fact that the U.S, government did not include Pakistan in the list of ‘terrorist states,’ showed that India had failed to convince the U.S. of Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism, ‘even after campaigning for over eight months.”
He however, felt sorry that U.S. had imposed actions on Pakistan for having allegedly bought category| missiles from China. “We have not acquired any category1 missiles from China and those missiles that we have bought from. China do not violate the provisions of the missile technology control regime (MTCR),” he said, adding, “the U.S. decision was based on wrong information.”
On the question of Pakistan possessing nuclear weapons, he said while Pakistan did have the capacity to produce a nuclear bomb, it did not actually have the weapon,
Asked if the LS.1. wasengaged in espionage in India, he said the organization was only meant for collecting information from all its neighbors, including India, but its activities ended there. Collecting information, he said, was “legitimate business.” In an obvious reference to the Research and Analysis Wing, Khokhar said India had an intelligence organization which was much bigger than ISI.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 10, 1993
