India's Opposition Parties Support Govt's Steps Against Pakistan

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, December 30, 2001

India's Opposition Parties Support Govt's Steps Against Pakistan

India's major opposition parties on Sunday came out in "full support" of the measures taken by the government against Pakistan following the December 13 terrorist strike on Indian parliament, but avoided any talk of war at an all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported here.

The opposition leaders sought "maximum scope" for diplomatic steps to force Islamabad to rein in terrorist outfits as "no one wanted a war," said the PTI.

All the leaders approved the action taken by the government so far and were appreciative of the future diplomatic strategy unveiled by External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh at the meeting, Indian Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan was quoted as saying following the two-hour meeting.

The meeting also saw Singh emphasizing that India's military deployment on the borders was "purely a defensive deployment," Mahajan said.

Asserting that the military deployment by India was necessitated because there was deployment from Pakistan, Mahajan said Indian military deployment was "200 percent defensive."

No one from the government side or the opposition side raised the issue of military initiative at the meeting, Mahajan noted.

Insisting that none in the government or in the opposition was keen on a war, he said no sane person would go for a war.

The PTI also reported that a suggestion was made at the meeting that Jaswant Singh should meet his Pakistani counterpart Abdul Sattar on the sidelines of the forthcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Kathmandu next week.

However, Mahajan said that no decision had so far been taken on the issue.

India would forcefully raise the issue of terrorism at the summit but there would be no discussion on Indo-Pak relations since the SAARC charter did not provide for bilateral issues being raised, he noted.

The Indian government also told the opposition leaders that it was preparing a list of terrorists and criminals who India believed had taken refuge in Pakistan and would forward it to Islamabad in due course for their extradition, Mahajan said.

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