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| Sunday, 4 August 2002 |
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Frances urges India, Pakistan to resume dialogue By Penny MacRae NEW DELHI, Aug 2 (Reuters) - French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin called on nuclear-armed India and Pakistan on Friday to begin "a substantial and comprehensive dialogue" to avert war over disputed Kashmir. Villepin, who travels to Pakistan on Saturday on the second leg of a whirlwind South Asian trip, said France did not wish to interfere in the long-running row over the Himalayan region that brought the two nations to the brink of war in May. "(This) must be settled by India and Pakistan," he told a news conference. "This is your responsibility -- you hold the key in your hand...(But) answers can be found provided a substantial and comprehensive dialogue is resumed." But Villepin said the rest of the world could not ignore the stand-off between the neighbours, who have a million troops massed on their border. "It is a fact that in today's world, regional crises are no longer limited," he said. India has always strongly resisted any outside interference in the Kashmir dispute. The minister's visit came on the heels of a trip to south Asia last weekend by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who also tried to nudge the states toward talks. Villepin, who repeated France's backing of a permanent U.N. Security Council seat for long-time ally India, was making his first foray to the region since he was appointed foreign minister in May. His Indian counterpart, Yashwant Sinha, said no talks could start until New Delhi saw proof that Pakistan had halted militants infiltrating into the Muslim-majority Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and dismantled its "structure of terrorism". Pakistan has said it has already stopped infiltration and repeatedly called for dialogue over the Kashmir dispute, a legacy of the partition of the subcontinent into Islamic Pakistan and mainly Hindu but secular India in 1947. India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads since a December raid on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants. Pakistan has denied involvement. Villepin's visit to Pakistan on Saturday comes almost three months after a suicide bomber in a car packed with explosives killed 11 French navy experts, two Pakistanis and himself in Karachi. The blast was one of a series aimed at Western targets in Pakistan. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has linked the attacks to Pakistan's stand against international terrorism. His friendliness with Washington has angered Islamic radicals at home, who have been blamed for the attacks on Western targets. |
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