No let-up in rivals' rhetoric

India and Pakistan failed to find any common ground in the growing war of words yesterday that seems destined to set this South Asian meet apart from the rest.

As the last two leaders of the seven nation grouping arrived here yesterday - Khaleda Zia, Prime Minister of Bangladesh and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan - there was no let up in the rhetoric in the Indian and Pakistani camps but there may be a glimmer of light in the first ever interaction between Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Bangladeshi counterpart Khaleda Zia.

Informed sources said that Vajpayee and Khaleda may have lowered their suspicions of each other after the Indian premier reminded his Bangladeshi counterpart of his friendship with her assassinated husband Ziaur Rehman, who was head of Bangladesh when Saarc was launched in Dhaka. Vajpayee was the Indian foreign minister at the time.

Vajpayee is reported to have told Khaleda that he had no objections to a review of the Ganges water treaty, a Khaleda election promise. But with India and Pakistan it was much more of the same.

Indian Foreign Office spokesperson Nirupama Rao told reporters that the Indian government had handed over the "evidence" to the Pakistan government. She was referring to the list of 20 people that India wants handed over.

The list includes Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, that India insists is the mastermind behind the attack on the Indian parliament on December 13.

Asked why India had not charged him while he was in an Indian jail for over five years, Rao said Azhar had in fact been charged with travelling on a forged passport - he had arrived on a Portuguese passport from Dhaka - and with terrorist activities related to his role as head of the banned Harkat ul Ansar.

"He was charged under the Prevention of Safety and Disruptionof Terrorist Act," she sai.

Officials told Gulf News that the charges had been dropped against him when he was exchanged in return for the freedom of the hostages taken during the Christmas-eve hijacking of IC 814 from Kathmandu to Delhi.

Pakistan's spokesperson Maj General Rashid Qureshi, however, continued to insist that "no evidence" had been handed over, just a list. When asked whether he would investigate those on that list, he said that Pakistan would apprehend any individual seen to have "incited violence and sectarian terror in Pakistan".

He said the arrest of Azhar and other individuals had to be seen in that context. He also said they were not being done at the behest of India.

"There is no question of bending to India or anybody else's wishes," he said, adding that the Jaish chief as well as the arrest of Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed was in accordance with an ordinance passed by the Musharraf government several months before the September 11 terror attack in Washington and New York.

Qureshi clarified that the arrests were not against any groups and that the freezing of accounts of the two groups was in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions that directed the freezing of assets of all terrorist groups on their list.

Reacting to Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh's statement on Wednesday that Pakistan's moral and diplomatic support contravened the UN Security Council resolution 1373 that banned any such support, Qureshi reminded his audience that there was an earlier resolution that assured the Kashmiris right to self determination, while reiterating a call for talks betwen the two countries.

Rao had earlier dismissed the call saying "there were no instant formulae" for bilateral talks and these happened on the sidelines of such summits according to the wishes of the leaders involved.

She also reacted to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's comment that "while Pakistan had a relevant case on Kashmir, cross-border terrorism was not the answer" by saying that she agreed with Blair on the second premise. "Terrorism is terrorism wherever it occurs," she said.