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Straw chooses words carefully



NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is in India after arriving from Islamabad in a bid to find a peaceful solution to the Kashmir dispute. He held a news conference with the Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh on Wednesday.

CNN's Satinder Bindra listened to the conference and spoke afterwards to CNN International Anchor Marina Kolbe.

Kolbe: What was the significance of Jack Straw's news conference?

Bindra: What was significant about the conference was the very deliberate choice of words from the foreign secretary. He recognises how sensitive this is and he did everything possible not to offend his hosts, so he talked about the "bilateral issue" of Kashmir, knowing full well that India does not favour any sort of mediation by any country in the world.

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CNN's Ram Ramgopal reports on the meeting between the British foreign secretary and the Indian external affairs minister (May 29)

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He devoted most of his talk to the issue of terrorism which India wants to solve so desperately. And he decided even earlier in his statements to call the fighters in Kashmir "terrorists." He chooses the word "terrorists" as opposed to "freedom fighters."

"Freedom fighters" is of course the term favoured on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control and the border. And once again secretary Jack Straw stressed that the Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf will have to do everything possible to stop the infiltration of fighters from the Pakistani side of Kashmir onto the Indian side. Certainly that will have pleased his Indian hosts.

Kolbe: Was the issue of verification discussed?

Bindra: Straw was asked about the issue of verification -- how does one verify if the number of these fighters is reducing -- he said there was no way for the international community at this point to have a proper verification scheme, but certainly the expectation of the international community is that General Musharraf should be living up to the words and promises that he's been making recently.

Kolbe: What about the issue of the "nuclearisation of terrorism?"

Bindra: The "nuclearisation of terrorism" was a phrase which Jaswant Singh first used on Tuesday -- he said that there was pressure on the Indian side from Pakistan -- he put it this way, that it is as if someone is holding a gun to India's head, saying: "Dialogue, otherwise I'll pull this trigger of terrorism."

Now obviously in the recent past there have been some suggestions from the Pakistani side that if the Indians responded to ever-increasing threats of terrorism, then the Pakistanis would choose to respond in any manner they saw fit -- i.e. implying that the Pakistani side could use nuclear weapons.



 
 
 
 







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