'No,thanks' -India rejects U.N offer.
PM rejects U.N. offer
By C. Raja Mohan
NEW DELHI, MAY 30. As the armed forces gained significant ground against the Pakistani intruders in the Kargil sector, India rejected the offer by the United Nations to send a special envoy to defuse Indo-Pak. tensions and reaffirmed its determination to vacate the aggression in Kashmir.
Addressing a rally here at his residence, the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, said he had summarily rejected the proposal by the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, to send international observers to Kashmir.
Mr. Vajpayee said India would continue its military operations until the intruders were all flushed out and that there was no question of India accepting a third party mediation.
Mr. Vajpayee's confidence that the international community will treat the dispute as a bilateral one between New Delhi and Islamabad is borne out by India's latest diplomatic cmmunication with the United States and Britain.
The External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, received telephone calls over the weekend from the U.S. Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright, and the British Foreign Secretary,Mr. Robin Cook.
Mr. Singh's conversations with the two Western powers, according to official sources,indicate that neither Washington nor London supports the Pakistani demand for an intervention by the U.N. The U.S. and the U.K. have apparently emphasised that the tensions between India and Pakistan must be resolved in a bilateral framework.
On Pakistan's offer to send its Foreign Minister, Mr. Sartaj Aziz, for bilateral talks in New Delhi, Mr. Vajpayee said, ''We are not shy of talks but will not do so under fear''.
Foreign Office sources said Mr. Aziz's visit was under consideration but a decision on talks with Pakistan would take into account the fact that aggression had been committed and must be vacated.
Official sources indicate that the U.S. and Britain are aware of the genesis of the present confrontation between India and Pakistan. Mr. Singh conveyed India's firm resolve to repulse the aggression by Pakistan and India's restraint in not crossing the Line of Control.
The essence of the message from New Delhi to the international community is that the focus of the Government will remain riveted on vacating the Pakistani aggression and that everything else is secondary.
The primary objective of India at this point is to ''restore the sanctity of the Line of Control'' in Kashmir and return the military situation in the State to status quo ante.
In the Kargil sector, as the Indian Air Force pounded the positions occupied by the infiltrators for the fifth day, the units of the Army closed in on them and inflicted heavy casualties.
In a valiant operation in the Batalik sector on Saturday, India lost an officer, Major M. Sravanan of the 1 Bihar Regiment, who led a daring assault to encircle a position occupied by the intruders. Major Sravanan was leading an operation over the last four days to evict the intruders and was killed in a hand-to-hand combat.
Briefing the press here, Air Vice-Marshal S. K. Malik, Additional Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Operations), said air attacks resumed this morning despite 24 hours of bad weather. Battle damage assessments from forward controllers had been encouraging, he said.
Even as the ground operations to evict the filtrators gather momentum, the Government is acting on intelligence reports regarding Pakistani troop movements along the international border. The Government has taken precautionary measures to ensure that the ''forces are maintained in a high state of operational alert'', it was stated at the official briefing of the Defence forces here.
Reacting strongly to the brutal killing of the IAF Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja by his captors in Pakistan, the Government today summoned the Deputy High Commissioner of Pakistan, Mr. Akabar Zeb, to the Foreign Office. The post-mortem on the body had confirmed that Ajay Ahuja was killed by two bullet wounds - one on his head and the other on his chest.
Strongly condemning ''this act of cowardice and savagery'', the Ministry of External Affairs told Mr. Zeb that India ''expects that those who are guilty of shooting Squadron Leader Ahuja in cold blood will be prosecuted by the Government of Pakistan for murder and punished''.
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