PRESS CONFERENCE BY FOREIGN MINISTER OF PAKISTAN

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY FOREIGN MINISTER OF PAKISTAN

If the promise of a referendum is fulfilled in East Timor, it must also be redeemed in Kashmir, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Sartaj Aziz, told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters press conference.

Describing the conflict in Kashmir as the oldest unresolved issue on the agenda of the United Nations, Mr. Aziz said the dangerous situation now had a nuclear dimension. The conflict had been simmering for many years with not enough interest taken by the international community. Only after nuclear tests by Pakistan and India in May of 1998, had there been appeals by the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Non-Aligned Movement for attention and a solution to the problem.

The basic issue common to both Kashmir and East Timor was the right to self-determination, he continued. Recent events in East Timor demonstrated that where the United Nations played an active role, there was progress. Pakistan was ready for a bilateral dialogue with India, and the international community should take an interest in facilitating and encouraging the dialogue.

In response to a question as to whether opposition to talks from within political parties in Pakistan would have an impact on efforts to make progress on the talks, Mr. Aziz said that on the issue of Kashmir there was not total bipartisan agreement to have a dialogue, but there was no danger of political instability as a result. The people of both countries wanted the issue to be resolved.

Concerning the nuclear dimension, Mr. Aziz said, the recently announced nuclear doctrine by India caused Pakistan deep concern. If India pursued that doctrine, whose dangerous implications should be quite evident, he said, Pakistan would be obliged to adopt appropriate policies in response for the preservation and maintenance of deterrence. Pakistan had proposed a conference with the participation of all the permanent members of the Security Council and other interested major powers as well as Pakistan and India to promote the goals of strategic restraint and stability in South Asia.

In response to a question as to what kind of reaction the proposal had received from the five permanent members, Mr. Aziz said that Pakistan was undertaking consultations on the initiative at the moment, after which there would be a formal proposal.

Mr. Aziz told another correspondent, who asked what were Pakistan’s conditions for signing the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), that the only condition Pakistan had ever imposed was a removal of the sanctions. Despite the deteriorating security situation, Pakistan was ready to adhere to the CTBT by September 2000 “in an atmosphere free from coercion and pressure”, which basically meant a

Pakistan Press Conference - 2 - 24 September 1999

removal of sanctions, he said. He added that action in the United States Congress to lift the sanctions had made only limited progress so far.

In the context of Mr. Aziz’s statement in his opening remarks at the press conference that Pakistan was convinced that the correct approach to helping Afghanistan was engagement and not sanctions against that country, a correspondent said it seemed as though only Pakistan opposed sanctions. Did his country feel isolated on the matter? Mr. Aziz replied that other countries also supported the view that, at the moment, incentives and interaction were required. Sanctions would not achieve the objective. The United Nations should take a balanced view and try to promote dialogue even-handedly rather than trying to push one side against the wall.

A correspondent asked for a reaction to criticism from the Iranian Foreign Minister about the outflow of drugs and terrorism from the Afghanistan area. Mr. Aziz said the Taliban regime in Afghanistan had issued a directive declaring drug trafficking “un-Islamic” and illegal. The problem was that a country at war for twenty years, with no systems or stability, could become a safe haven for all kinds of people, including drug barons and terrorists. The answer lay in restoring peace. Once peace was in place, there would be systems to control those kinds of problems. The United Nations had recently undertaken a very good programme. In those areas where the program was operating, drug cultivation had decreased, he said.

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