ISLAMABAD (PTI): Pakistan on Dec.31 demanded halt to repression in Kashmir lifting of siege of Hazrat Bal mosque and reduction and withdrawal of Indian security forces from the valley as minimum preconditions for continuation of dialogue between the two nations after the foreign secretary-level talks from Jan.2.
There will be no dialogue in future if these minimum conditions are not met by the other side. We are going for the talks in good faith the foreign minister Sardar Aseef Ahmed Ali told a Press conference on the eve of the seventh round of Parleys between the foreign secretaries J.N. Dixit and Shahrayar Khan.
Sardar Aseef who briefed journalists on the just concluded visit of the Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to China and North Korea maintained that Islamabad agreed to resume the discussions at the foreign secretary level after assurances from the external affairs minister Dinesh Singh during the SAARC conference in Dhaka that these conditions would be met.
Asked about how he viewed the success of the talks being held after a gap of nearly 16 months Sardar Aseef said Tam not being optimistic or pessimistic. I have to be practical: We are going in for the talks under very difficult conditions a$ nothing has happened since their announcement (on Nov24) they (the Indians) had plenty of time to prove their intentions. More than 100,000 troops have been brought into the valley since we agreed 6 hold the talks.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 7, 1994
