Talks revival in mutual interest

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan on Thursday asked India to honour its commitment to Kashmiri people and allow them to exercise their right to self-determination. It is high time that India honour its commitments to the world community and the Kashmiri people by allowing them to exercise their right to self-determination, said the Foreign Office spokesman, Abdul Basit addressing his weekly press briefing. At the same time, Pakistan is committed to provide moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris in their struggle for self-determination, he said in a reply to question on the latest situation in Indian Kashmir. He said Pakistan agreed with Indian Home Minister Chidambarams statement that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was very fragile but did not agree with his assessment that the situation could be tackled through effective administrative and political intervention. We do not agree that the situation can be rectified by administrative and half-hearted political measures, he said, Kashmiris struggle for the right to self-determination cannot be brushed aside indefinitely, he added. The Amnesty International had also recently written to the Indian Home Minister asking for an end to the grim situation in Kashmir. Basit said that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani would meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Egyptian tourist resort of Sharm-ul-Sheikh on July 16 on the sidelines of Non-Aligned Movement summit. He said, The two leaders will hold talks over the composite dialogue and bilateral issues. He said the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries would also meet on the sidelines of NAM summit. When asked about the recent exchange of prisoners lists between Pakistan and India, he said Pakistan provided a list of 576 Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails to the Indian government. However, he said the Indian authorities had not yet provided the list of Pakistani prisoners in the Indian jails. He said, Under the agreement the two countries have to exchange the lists of the prisoners on July 1 and January 1 every year and there is a breach of the bilateral agreement by India for not providing the list of Pakistani prisoners in the India jails. Talking about the prospects of resumption of Pak-India dialogue process, he said it was necessary for both the countries that they restarted the stalled peace process to settle their bilateral issues. Pakistan believes that it is absolutely necessary for the two countries to return to the negotiating table because without talking to each other it will be simply impossible to resolve the issues that the two countries are confronting, he said. Answering a question, he said Pakistan had been conducting investigation into the Mumbai attacks with full seriousness and it was proceeding systematically. India knows well about this and we have been saying that while Pakistan does want the resumption of the Composite Dialogue it should not be construed as a favour by one country to the other, he said. He said that the restart of peace process was in our mutual interest and that of our region. It is hoped India will realise this, he added. To a question on controversy surrounding the appointment of new ambassador to France, Basit said the former Ambassador to Paris, Asma Anisa had returned to Pakistan and government was in the process of sending a new envoy to that country. To a query, he said that the UN had launched an appeal for $ 543 million in May for the help of IDPs and so far the UN Agencies had received $ 196 million. He said, They have urged the world nations to expedite the release of their pledged donations for the dislocated population. He, however, said that irrespective of whether or not Pakistan received the donations, the government and people of Pakistan were committed to look after the displaced people within available resources. Speaking about the Pakistani family arrested in Saudi Arabia, he said, Our request with the Saudi government for consular access is still there. We are working on that and our missions are actively pursuing this request but as of today we do not have any response from Saudi authorities. We hope that our mission would be allowed to have consular access to these Pakistanis as soon as possible, the spokesman said. When asked about the mandate of UN Commission formed to investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, he said its mandate was to determine the facts and circumstances of her assassination.

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