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Pak asks EU to get involved in talks with India

A senior Pakistani leader today called for the European Union's ''close involvement'' in the India-Pakistan dialogue to bring about a durable peace in South Asia by resolving the Kashmir dispute.

Wasim Sajjad, chairman of the senate, the upper house of parliament, said if India could be persuaded by third parties ''to show a flexible and innovative attitude ... We can move easily to expand ties in other fields as well''.

Sajjad made the remarks at a Pakistan-German dialogue which opened in Islamabad to study the situation created by the nuclear tests by India and then by Pakistan in May.

Germany would head the EU and the G-8 countries, who slapped sanctions against the two South Asian nations, effective in the first half of 1999.

''For a billion people held hostage by the hostility of the two major players, it is not very hard to imagine what South Asia would be if Pakistan and India were to cooperate, not only on bilateral trade, water, population and other issues, but on preserving the strategic interests of South Asia,'' the Pakistani leader said.

Christian Ruck, a German parliamentarian who is leading the German team participating in the Pakistan-German dialogue, urged both India and Pakistan ''to return to the policy of non-proliferation'' and sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty".

Ruck said the German people ask their government to justify giving financial assistance to nations who spend their own money on building weapons of mass destruction.

Ruck also voiced the German people's concern over the fundamentalist trends in Pakistan and the policies of Afghanistan's Taliban rulers ''and their foreign supporters''. He appealed to Pakistan ''to remain a tolerant country''.

UNI

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