France Calls on Pakistan, India for Restraint to Reduce Tension

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, December 29, 2001

France Calls on Pakistan, India for Restraint to Reduce Tension

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine has sent a message to his Pakistani and Indian counterparts Abdul Sattar and Jaswant Singh calling them to show restraint amid growing tension, the French Foreign Ministry announced Friday.

Vedrine "has sent messages to his two counterparts, assuring them of the solidarity of France in the fight against terrorism and calling on them to show restraint and pursue with efforts at dialogue," said a spokesman of the French ministry.

An escalation of military and diplomatic tension has been on the rise between Pakistan and India since the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament in which 14 people were killed.

India accused two Kashmiri groups of being responsible for the attack and demanded Islamabad to crack down the groups. Pakistan condemned the attack, froze the assets of the two groups but urged India to present evidence about the groups' involvement in the attack.

India then announced that the possibility of military reprisals is not excluded against the "Pakistani terrorist camps."

India keeps blaming Pakistan for fomenting rebellion and training Islamic fighters in the Kashmir region while Pakistan says it only gives moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people.

The two countries have fought three wars over the past 55 years, two of them for Kashmir, a 190,000-square-kilometer mountainous region in the north of the south Asian subcontinent, which is populated with 7 million people -- 77 percent Muslims and 20 percent Hindus.

More than 35,000 people have died in conflicts in the India- controlled part of Kashmir since 1989 when a violent revolt erupted against Indian rule.

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