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Kathmandu Monday January 07, 2002 Paush 23, 2058.
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Terrorism no way to fight for freedom:
Vajpayee
India not to allow her soil to be used against Nepal
By Suman Pradhan
KATHMANDU, Jan 6:It was billed as an interaction
programme where the focus, senior Indian officials had said, would solely be on
Nepal-India relations. But Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was holding the
interaction programme with Nepali journalists today, couldn’t refrain from delving
into his country’s contentious relations with neighbour and arch rival Pakistan.
Prodded by Nepali journalists, Vajpayee spoke
about the ‘hand of friendship’ speech of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf yesterday.
"If you heard the Pakistani
President’s speech, then there is no mention of terrorism," Vajpayee said.
"He was trying to differentiate between terrorism and freedom struggle. There is a
lot of difference in our positions. Terrorism by itself is reprehensible. It is another
thing that it is perpetrated to achieve some goals. But why should terrorism be used to
achieve those goals…This is not the way to fight for freedom. There is democracy. We
can sit down and discuss issues peacefully."
The reference obviously was to Kashmir where
India accuses Pakistan of supporting militant groups to perpetrate acts of terror in
India, a charge Pakistan rejects.
Again prodded by local journalists, the Indian
Prime Minister explained his feelings about SAARC, and in the process shed some light on
why had refused to hold bilateral meetings with President Musharraf.
"From the very beginning, contentious
issues are not discussed in SAARC summits," the Indian leader said. "It (SAARC)
is primarily an economic organization. If SAARC gets embroiled in contentious political
debates, then SAARC will fail…The majority of SAARC nations don’t want
that…I believe that SAARC has a bright future, and India will do all that is
necessary to make it a success."
Prime Minister Vajpayee then turned his
attention to Nepal-India relations, and one of the first issues he addressed was on
reports that the Maoist rebels were receiving arms and training in nearby Indian
districts. The Indian Prime Minister firmly rejected the reports and announced that
India’s policy was not to let any group use Indian soil against Nepal.
"We do not want our soil to be used against
neighbour Nepal. And it is not being used," Vajpayee said, adding that the Indian
government was working with its Nepali counterpart to curtail the activities of the
rebels.
Addressing other Nepali concerns, the Indian
Prime Minister also spoke about the impasse in negotiating a renewal of the 1996
Nepal-India Trade Treaty. "I am confident that there will be a satisfactory solution
(to the impasse)," he said. "The Treaty has already been extended for three
months. If the need arises, it can be extended further. But there are some issues of
concern to us and we are working out on those."
Expanding on that issue, Indian External Affairs
Minister Jaswant Singh pointed out that the voluminous exports of products which India
wants to put on the negative list, particularly vanaspati ghee and acrylic yarn, were
having an untoward effect on Indian manufacturers because trade on such products were
being "switched."
Singh said that some businessmen, not
necessarily just Nepali exporters but Indian importers too, were switching the normal
trade in these products which was harming Indian manufacturers. These issues needed to be
addressed by both the governments, he said.
Another issue Singh addressed was the
requirement for travel documents for Indian tourists visiting Nepal by air. A journalist
pointed out that such requirements were hitting the local tourism industry hard. To this,
Singh replied that the measure was temporary.
"The intention is not to harm Nepal’s
tourism industry. The facility of free movement of people between Nepal and India was
being misused by some elements. It was to check such misuse that the policy was
introduced. But it is a temporary measure," Singh said.
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