| | No overland access to Afghanistan for India: Aziz Daily Times, Pakistan
11/14/2005
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ON BOARD PM’S PLANE: Despite Afghanistan’s entry into SAARC, Pakistan will continue with its policy of denying India overland access to Afghanistan because that policy is linked to the broad matrix of India-Pakistan relations, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told the media on his return flight from Dhaka. “India can send goods via Karachi; that facility already exists. But the overland route needs progress on certain core issue,” he said. Afghanistan can, however, use the overland route to send goods to India, which it is already doing. At his bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Aziz proposed some concrete steps that could indicate progress on the issue of Kashmir. These included demilitarisation in the region, a soft Line of Control and self-government for the Kashmiris in Jammu and Kashmir. As Mr Aziz repeatedly stated to the media during the conference, these steps would show progress on Kashmir. When Daily Times asked him if the linkage of issues with Kashmir meant that Pakistan was going back to its original position of an integrated dialogue rather than the composite framework that had been the basis of the process since the January 6, 2004, Islamabad Declaration, Mr Aziz said the linkage was only to the extent of full trade ties with India, the issue of transit facility and investment. “Pakistan remains committed to the composite process on all other issues that make up the various baskets under the Islamabad Declaration,” he said. When Daily Times approached some senior officials of the Foreign Office to find out whether this crystallised position on Kashmir being pivotal for movement on trade transit and investment indicated a hardening of the Pakistani stance, they said this was in keeping with what Pakistan had been expecting since the normalisation process began. On the Indian side, Singh and earlier Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran made clear that India would not even think of demilitarising until it faced the prospect of terrorism. Indian officials told Daily Times that the issue of self-government was already taken care of and there had been elections in Kashmir.
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