India trying to create bogey of 'infiltration' for more troops in IHK: Pakistan
By Maria A Khan - Pakistan Times Staff Correspondent

ISLAMABAD: While rejecting India's oft-repeated allegations of 'cross border infiltration', Pakistan Monday described it as an attempt by New Delhi to deploy additional troops in the Indian Occupied Kashmir.

"India is basically creating bogey of infiltration to deploy more troops in occupied Kashmir," Foreign Office Spokesman Naeem Khan said to a question at a weekly briefing here.

Commenting on the allegations, the spokesman noted conflicting statements emanating from New Delhi.

He said while some reports suggested that "infiltration" in Indian Occupied Kashmir had gone down, others talked of "upsurge in terrorist incidents".

Brushing aside the allegations, the spokesman said Pakistan's commitment to counter-terrorism was complete and unquestionable.

The Spokesman instead noted rise in human rights violations in Occupied Kashmir during the past few days and called for the need to address the issue and bring about improvement in the human rights situation there.

Responding to a question, Khan said Commerce Secretaries of Pakistan and India will meet on August 9-10 to discuss proposals for expanding economic and trade cooperation under the ongoing composite dialogue process.

The discussions, he added, would particularly focus on transportation services associated with trade activities -shipping, railway and airlinks.

Khan said Pakistan would go into the trade talks with an open, constructive and positive mind.

He hoped India would be able to bring about some improvements in trade regime to facilitate Pakistani products into its market.

Pakistan, he said, was also looking forward to Indian proposals to rectify trade imbalance between the two countries and would propose a meeting of the Joint Working Group to be held in Pakistan.

Talks on nuclear CBMs

The Spokesman described the talks on nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) as held in cordial atmosphere during which both sides showed flexibility.

After the talks held on August 5-6, Pakistan and India have agreed to establish a hotline between the foreign secretaries from September and also agreed on the pre-notification of missile testing by both sides.

The Spokesman described it as a positive development and said it would bring about strategic stability between the two countries.

He also termed as "positive development" the joint statement issued Monday at the conclusion of the Conventional CBMs talks in New Delhi.

According to the Statement the two sides, among others, have agreed to upgrade hotline between their Director Generals Military Operations (DGMOs) and regular flag-meetings at designated points.

The Spokesman replied in negative when asked if the recent allegations and counter-allegations from the two sides would have any impact on the peace process between the South Asian neighbours.

In this regard, he referred to the cordial atmosphere during the nuclear and conventional CBMs talks.

Khan also recalled a recent telephonic conversation between President General Pervez Musharraf and Indian Premier Dr. Manmohan Singh in which the two leaders agreed on the need of avoiding negative statements.

To a question, the Spokesman said that Kashmir is a disputed territory as also recognized by UN resolutions.

Reject Fazl's Plea

Naeem Khan rejected as absolutely untrue a reported statement by Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman on infiltration of "militants" from the tribal agency into Afghanistan.

He said there was a proper mechanism in the shape of Tri-partite Commission comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States which hold its meeting regularly and no such matter was ever raised.

The Spokesman further observed that Afghan refugees from North and South Waziristan were being shifted to settled areas in the obtaining situation there which should not be misunderstood.

He recalled that with over 70,000 troops, Pakistan has the highest level of concentration on its western border to prevent any illegal cross-over.

Pakistani security agencies, he added, had also conducted 53 operations in the North and South Waziristan areas against the terrorists elements hiding there.

Iran-EU Talks

On Iran-EU talks on Tehran's nuclear programme, he said Pakistan favoured peaceful settlement of the issue through dialogue that took care of international rights and obligations of all parties.

Pakistan was concerned as it did not want to see emergence of any new crisis in its neighborhood, he said and added it was for both the parties to work out the settlement of the issue.

On the proposed UN reforms, he said an extra-ordinary summit of the African states did not find it possible to accept the G-4 resolution on expansion of the Security Council.

Pakistan, which is working with the Unity For Consensus (UFC) group, looked forward to a dialogue with the African states that serve interests of both sides.●