May 29 2002 – The Indian government yesterday described the hard-hitting television address made by Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, as “disappointing and dangerous” and warned that it had only increased tensions over Kashmir.
Jaswant Singh, India’s external affairs minister, said India would stick by its policy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in the dispute but warned that it “cannot continue to be penalised for its patience”.
Analysts said there was widespread anger in New Delhi over Gen Musharraf’s speech yesterday, in which he warned that Pakistan’s people would “shed the last drop of their blood” to defend their country against “the enemy” – India.
Mr Singh said Gen Musharraf’s address was “disappointing as it merely repeats some earlier reassurances that remain unfulfilled today. Dangerous because of deliberate posturing – tensions have been added, not reduced.”
But Mr Singh’s response did not contain any new diplomatic reprisals against India’s nuclear neighbours. He instead insisted that the onus was on Gen Musharraf to rein in Pakistan-based Islamic extremists, whom India blames for a series of terrorist attacks in India and in the disputed province of Kashmir.
He called on Gen Musharraf to shut down the Pakistan-based militant training camps in Pakistan Kashmir. “The current war against terrorism will not be won decisively until their base camps inside Pakistan are closed permanently,” he said.
India’s defence minister, George Fernandes, also said today that members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida group and Taliban fighters from Afghanistan are just across the border in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, a claim denied by a Pakistani army spokesman.
The escalating tension between the two nuclear neighbours was stoked further by Pakistan concluding a four-day missile testing programme on the day the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, arrived for diplomatic talks with Gen Musharraf.
Mr Straw, who is today meeting Gen Musharraf and Pakistan’s foreign minister, Abdul Sattar, last night warned that “there are clear limits to external diplomacy”.
“I am under no illusions about what I may or may not be able to do,” he said.