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India Rules Out Talks With Pakistan In Near Future
India virtually ruled out talks with Pakistan in the near future due to current situation, which has "transformed beyond recognition" following the terrorist strikes in the United States last week.
Emerging from a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told the media in New Delhi on Friday night that no meeting between the leaders of the two countries was scheduled at the moment.
"Until the situation currently faced by Pakistan is fully resolved, the leadership of Pakistan would really have no time or inclination to address this issue," said Singh, who is also the minister of defence.
The Times of India reported that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had decided to stall the dialogue with Islamabad in response to intemperate remarks by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf about India last Wednesday.
Vajpayee accepted Musharraf's invitation to visit Pakistan during their meeting last July in India's ancient city of Agra, 200 kilometers southeast of here.
The Indian leader said in the interview that no statements had emanated from Washington to suggest that the US was in a mood to focus on India's bitter experience of terrorist activities on its soil though New Delhi had offered to fully cooperate with the United States in retaliatory military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
However, Jaswant Singh said at the press conference that the speech by US President George Bush earlier on Friday was a "very fine statement" and "we welcome the speech in its entirety".
India welcomed Bush's categorical statement of the US resolve to combat terrorism until it is rooted out, and the approach outlined in the speech was "clearly correct" and India supported the approach, Singh added.
Meanwhile, Singh spoke to Secretary Gereran of Arab League Amra Moussa and his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Maher over telephone on September 21 as apart of consultations with the international community to assess the developments out of the terrorist strikes.
The minister had already had contacted with his counterparts from the US, Britain, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries.
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