Pallone voice in India’s favour

Pallone in a letter to fellow Congressmen asked them to reject these proposals and took a strong objection to the expression `Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India’ used by Torricelli and Johnson.

It was wrong to characterise India that way, he said, adding, `I am not sure if the reference was intentional or careless but it is not the type of statement that should be in a letterfrom members of Congress.’

`True Pakistan was established as an Islamic nation, but while Hindus constitute a majority in India, secular India provides full citizenship for its minority communities, including Muslims,’ he said.

Noting that Pakistan had renewed its efforts to internationalise the Kashmir issue by trying to bring in the US as a mediator after the Kargil fiasco, Pallone said Isalamabad was `trying to gain at the negotiating table what it lost on the battlefield.’

`Members of Congress should be urging the administration To stick with its policy of not intervening and in stressing the importance of India and Pakistan resolving this conflict under the existing bilateral framework officially accepted by both countries,’ the former co-chairman of the India Caucus said.

In his letter, Pallone reminded the house that `the Clinton administration has wisely resisted Pakistani attempts to internationalise the conflict.’

`Pakistan has richly earned its recent international isolation, given itsdestabilising actions in Kashmir,’ he commented.