..........NEW DELHI (August 2) : India rejected
Pakistani proposals to solve their long-running Kashmir dispute because they were
"neurotic" and "based on fantasies," a top Indian bureaucrat was
quoted as saying on Saturday.
..........K Ranghunath, India's foreign secretary, told the Pioneer newspaper that
"Kashmir is an integral part of India" and Pakistani proposals "are an
interference in our internal affairs."
.........."We reject them. Talks have to be on realistic conditions, not based on
fantasies."
..........Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif met on the fringes of Saarc Colombo Summit to try and
improve relations, which hit a new low in May when both nations carried out nuclear tests.
..........Pakistan says no improvement in ties is possible without a resolution to the
Kashmir crisis. India wants to freeze the dispute while working towards closer trade ties.
..........According to Raghunath, Nawaz Sharif had proposed a series of "confidence
building measures to ease tension in Kashmir," which included reduction of Indian
troops, release of detainees and the stationing of International Committee of the Red
Cross and UN human right monitors in the region.
..........The proposals, he said, also included "strengthening of the United Nations
military observer group for India and Pakistan and authority to patrol on both sides of
line of control with regular reports to the UN Secrity Council."
..........But Raghunath added: "An obsessive focus on a single issue or a one-point
agenda is as neurotic for individuals as for nation states."
.........."It is India's conviction that a narrow segmented approach in inherently
flawed."--AFP |