India Says Aims to Avoid War with Pakistan

28/05/2001| IslamWeb

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee promised on Wednesday to make every effort to prevent war with Pakistan but said options were still open in a tense stand-off over an attack on India's parliament.
Vajpayee said New Delhi would first use diplomatic means to convince Pakistan to close down two Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist groups it blames for last week's attack on parliament, in which 14 people, including the five assailants, died.
But with his hawkish Home (Interior) Minister Lal Krishna Advani describing the current struggle in South Asia as ''terrorism versus civilization,'' Vajpayee's comments did little to allay fears of a confrontation between the nuclear rivals.
Underlining that tension, both India and Pakistan accused each other of seeking to build up troops along their border.
In his first speech to parliament since the December 13 attack, Vajpayee promised
Vajpayee however rejected a call from Pakistan, which has condemned the attack, for a joint investigation. ``All the five terrorists who were killed were Pakistanis. Is it not proof enough? There is no need for a joint probe,'' he said.
India has blamed the Kashmiri separatist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed for the attack and asked Islamabad to close them down and arrest their leaders.
Advani also said Pakistan should prove its commitment to fighting terrorism by handing over Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar, released from an Indian jail in return for freed Indian hostages in a 1999 plane hijack to Kandahar, in Afghanistan.