NEW DELHI: India sees positive signs in Pakistan’s no recognition of the so called provisional Jammu and Kashmir government, announced by the militant outfit Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Amanullah Khan, for the proposed foreign secretary level dialogue between the two countries next month.
Official sources here said the Pakistan foreign office statement in Islamabad on Tuesday, virtually treating Amanullah Khan’s announcement of the provisional government as invalid, was on expected lines.
Islamabad would thus appear to have ruled out the third option on the Kashmir issue, an independent Jammu and Kashmir, as proclaimed by Amanullah Khan.
Indian high commissioner in Islamabad JN Dixit conveyed to Pakistan foreign secretary Tanvir Ahmed Khan that any official seriously jeopardies bilateral relations.
‘The setting up of a provisional government appears to be a plot of Pakistan’s powerful inter-services intelligence (ISI) agency, according to official sources here.
The plot was apparently aimed at embarrassing the Bhutto government and the regime in Pakistan, the sources felt.
The fate of the foreign secretary level Indo Pak dialogue would depend on the official Pakistani reaction to Amanullah Khan’s announcement in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan occupied Kashmir on Monday.
His announcement came within hours of India agreeing to restore dialogue with Pakistan in a bid to ease crisis ridden relations, following Pakistan’s sponsoring of secessionism in Punjab and Kashmir.
India did not attach any significance to Khan’s announcement as his skills as a maker of governments were unknown and untested, though his credentials as a freedom fighter had been testified by several governments,
Official sources saw some back tracking in Amanullah Khan’s announcement, apparently under pressure from the Pakistan government, when he said that his provisional government would neither be a parallel one nor opposed to the Azad Kashmir regime.
India is awaiting the official Pakistani response to his announcement, which would have a bearing on the proposed foreign secretary level talks scheduled to be held in the first half of July.
An external affairs ministry spokesman said India wanted the talks to proceed in the interest of peace in the subcontinent.
Pakistan is monitoring the activities of Khan
Reports said some countries besides India and the United States had asked the Pakistan government for its comments and firsthand information about the status of the provincial government.
A foreign office spokesman had stated that the Pakistan government had always dealt with the successive governments of Azad Kashmir as the legal administrative authority of the territory and any announcement or declaration which was inconsistent with this established fact could not be treated as valid.
The federal cabinet which met under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto also reportedly discussed the issue.
Meanwhile, reports here quoting JKLF sources said Amanullah Khan had not taken the party’s central working committee into confidence before announcing the formation of the provisional government.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 29, 1990
