Respect LoC, says President Clinton

Prime Minister Vajpayee also took the opportunity of the joint press conference to condemn not only the massacre of 35 Sikhs in Kashmir yesterday, pointing out that “whenever there are chances of both our countries coming together…there is a deliberate design to foment trouble, to encourage killing, mass murders, to sabotage any attempt to bring about normalcy in this part of the world”.

Stressing that this policy was “not going to pay”, Vajpayee said he hoped the US President would discuss “this question…in Islamabad”.

Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra, later briefing journalists, in fact categorically blamed Pakistan for the massacre in the Kashmir valley and named the organisations behind it. Only a few hours before the US President had said that Washington still needed to find out who was behind the killings.

“Two terrorist groups are behind (the massacre),” Mishra said, adding, “the Lashkar-e-Toiba, led by one Abu Mahaz and the Moulvi faction of the Hizb-ul Mujahideen. These outfits are supported by the government of Pakistan,” Mishra said.

Mishra, while referring to the remarkable “deepening and broadening engagement” between India and the US, frankly admitted that certain differences, on the non-proliferation issue, continued to mark the position of both sides.

The joint vision statement actually spells out these differences. “India and the US share a commitment to reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons, but we have not always agreed on how to reach this common goal. The US believes India should forgo nuclear weapons. India believes that it needs to maintain a credible minimum nuclear deterrent in keeping with its own assessment of its security needs.”

Vajpayee in his opening comments after the delegation-level talks said he had explained to the US President the “reasons that compel us to maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent”. But he emphasised that the discussions, warm, friendly and candid, reflected the common desire to “build a new relationship of mutual trust and respect”.

“I have come to India,” the President said, returning the compliment, “because I want us to build a dynamic and lasting partnership, based on mutual respect and mutual benefit.”

But the President refrained from hectoring the Indian leadership, only saying that just as the US and Russia were making real progress moving away from nuclear weapons, “the world needs India to lead in the same direction”.

Even at the press conference, Clinton said “there was a possibility that we could reach more common ground on the issues of testing…an on restraint generally,” but refused to insist that New Delhi should immediately fall in line on the nuclear issue.

Answering a direct question on whether the US had asked India to sign the CTBT, the US president acknowledged that there was a “democratic process” on in the country, which he hoped “would produce a signing and ultimately a ratification” of the CTBT, just as he hoped that the “democratic process’ in the US would also produce a ratification of the CTBT.

“These are contentious issues. But I’m acutally quite optimistic about our ability to make progress on them,” the US president added.