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Pak interprets Sharief-Clinton statement its own way

The implementation of the joint statement signed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief and United States President Bill Clinton in Washington on Sunday may get bogged down in Pakistan's own interpretation of this document.

A clear hint of this came from Minister for Kashmir Affairs Majid Malik yesterday in an interview to BBC (Urdu) in London. He was asked how soon the Pakistan government would get the intruders down. He replied that before that some modalities would have to be settled ''by us together.''

On Monday, Pakistani daily Dawn's Shaheen Sabal had told the BBC that during the three-hour talks in Washington between Sharief and Clinton the modalities had been decided. Both parties had agreed on a time schedule for the withdrawal of the intruders.

According to Sabal, Americans thought this joint statement concerned only Kargil. But Pakistan interprets it to mean that it applies to all violations of the Line of Control after the 1972 Simla Agreement. (Pakistan alleges that India violated the LoC thrice since the Simla Agreement.)

After the signing of the joint statement, a Pakistani spokesman told newsmen that if the intruders did not withdraw on the government's appeal there was nothing it could do about it.

However, Malik has now contradicted this statement by saying: ''We do not know about the initial reaction (of militants) but we keep on talking to them and I am sure they will understand.'' He said the militants had achieved their objective by internationalising the Kashmir problem.

UNI

The Kargil Crisis

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