New Delhi: Hitting out at the West for adopting double-standards in dealing with
India's concerns on Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism, External Affairs
Minister Yashwant Sinha has asked it to clamp economic and "all kinds of pressure" on
Islamabad to put a complete and permanent stop to infiltration.
"If the international community wants, Pakistan will give up its acts of terrorism
against India in no time. There is obviously some disconnect between what they tell
us and what
they tell Pakistan," Sinha said while doing some plain speaking in an interview to
Tim Sebastian on BBC World's 'Hard Talk' programme to be aired on November
25.
"Putting pressure and talking sweetly to the terrorist, if that is good enough, it's
not good enough for us," he said.
Sinha said he stood by his remarks in London that the international community has
lost its moral right to advise India on the issue of terrorism vis-a-vis Pakistan
since it was making a "distinction between the good terrorist who operates in India,
and especially in Jammu and Kashmir and the bad terrorist who operates
elsewhere".
Asked why India was not talking to Pakistan, Sinha shot back "is the West talking to
Osama bin Laden?
"Terrorism that Pakistan is unleashing against India is as bad as the terrorism which
the Taleban and al-Qaida was unleashing in Afghanis an and elsewhere. And, if they
are not to be talked to, they have to be dealt with in another manner," he said.
Sinha said, "we expect the international community to have the same standards in
dealing with the terrorist who are coming from across the boundary into
India."
How do you expect the international community to remain indifferent when two regional
powers, India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and a million troops at their borders
with the serious conflict that goes on. And you are not keen to talk to the
Pakistanis,? he was asked.
The minister retorted, "So, what does it mean? If one country, which has got nuclear
weapons and threatens another country, the international community will tell the
threatened country to start submitting, start surrendering. Is that what you are
suggesting?
On reports of a decline in the level of infiltration, Sinha reminded Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf had assured the international community of putting a
permanent stop to
infiltration.
"It's a question of stopping terrorism. If one of the two towers in New York hadn't
come down, would you have said that we should be happy because only one has gone
down?
The Minister denied that anyone was pressing India to talk to Pakistan. "They might
be making their statements in public but nobody is pressurising. In any case, India
is not going to give into any pressures.
"We will talk to Pakistan. We have never said that we will not talk to Pakistan but
there must be a conducive atmosphere."
Asked whether a 54 per cent cut in terrorism was not creation of conducive
atmosphere, Sinha countered, "You don't talk to a fellow who held a gun to the temple
and say he has
removed it by six inches and now I will start talking".
He told the interviewer that the fundamental mistake being made was in thinking that
if infiltration and cross-border terrorism has gone down by 50 per cent it was good
enough.
"It's not good enough. It has to go down 100 per cent. Terrorism has to stop," he
emphasised.
He said whatever has been achieved was because of steps taken by India.
How do you know it wasn't due to pressure from the US? he was asked. "Because the
pressure did not work," Sinha replied adding in the run-up to the J&K elections, 800
people had been done to death. Because we know that in August and September, the
infiltration levels had reached very high proportion almost at par with last
year."
The minister said India expected the West and others who are interested to put
"enough pressure on Pakistan so that it is able to put a complete and permanent stop
to infiltration
from across the Line of Control and not permit its territory to be used, not have the
whole elaborate infrastructure of terrorism in that country to promote cross-border
terrorism."
PTI
