ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has saida military confrontation between India and Pakistan was not going ut0 resolve the Kashmir issue.
I hope that neither India nor Pakistan would be so foolish. We +had three Wars in the past and it did not resolve the issue, so obviously 8 conflict is not going to resolve the issue, I believe that both countries are Constrained by their own economic imperatives and not thinking in militaristic terms.” Ms. Bhutto said in a television interview in Washington.
In an hour long interview conducted by David Frost and telecast by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in its prime time program, Ms., Bhutto replied to several questions on the US Pak and Indo Pak the nuclear issue ‘and social and ‘religious subjects.
Asked if the need for any nuclear weapons would disappear if the \Kashmir issue was resolved, Ms. Bhutto said “I hope so, [think that ‘Pakistanis prepared even now with the Kashmir dispute on to seek an end to proliferation in the subcontinent? She mentioned Pakistan’s proposals of zero missile regimes and for declaring south Asia a nuclear free zone but alleged that Islamabad’s proposals for substantive talks on the issue of nuclear ‘weapons and on missile regime had! Not met with a “positive response” from India. Maintaining that Pakistan despite having the capability did not have a nuclear weapon or had detonated one, Ms. Bhutto observed that “since we believe in nonproliferation we would rather not do it unless there was a threat that was Asked if Pakistan would buy the Mirage 20005 planes from France, Ms. Bhutto said various options were being examined but the French aircraft were “very expensive” and with the tough International Monetary Fund conditionalities on keeping defence expenditure at a certain level, it ‘would depend on the sort of financing they could offer, On the Kashmir issue, Ms. Bhutto rejected the “third option” (independence of Kashmir) and said that “it would mean Balkanisation of both India and Pakistan which ‘was not in their interest.” At the time of partition, there was only the question of accession to Pakistan or India and nobody was allowed to choose independence.”
Claiming that what was needed was the good offices of a third party that could help India and Pakistan draw closer, she felt that “every dialogue between the two countries have ended in stalemate because India comes with its set piece, and Pakistan comes with its set piece, and that is it.”
India, it may be recalled, has rejected third party mediation on Kashmir including the offer of the UN secretary general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali and called for talk to resolve bilateral issues, asking Islamabad to abandon its “confrontationist posture.”
To a question on ant blasphemy Jaws, she said her government has been ‘talking to religious leaders so that the law could not be used to victimize people who were poor and helpless.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 25, 1994
