No mobilisation, no escalation from our side: Mukherjee

NI Wire

New Delhi

Wed, 31 Dec 2008: 

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee denying the Pakistani charges outrightly said on Tuesday that there is no question of escalating tensions on part of India. There is no mobilisation of Indian forces on the Indo-Pak border, except the patrolling that has been increased on both sides.

“The queson of de-escalation comes after there is escalation.

First, there should be escalation from our side, and then the question of de-escalation will come. Neither we have created any tension nor escalated anything,” Mukherjee said on Tuesday, responding to the Pak Foreign Minister’s demand that India should de-escalate.

There is no amassing of Indian troops on the border with Pakistan and there is no mobilisation, Mukherjee said, only normal winter exercises conducted every year had taken place.

There is no tension at all and it proves as we have repatriated 66 Pakistanis imprisoned for visa violations to their home country as a goodwill gesture on the eve of the New Year.

Mukherjee, however, asked Pakistan to back off from creating war hysteria and urged it to act against the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage instead as this would only lead to the resumption of dialogue between the two countries.

The external affairs minister also asked Pakistan to fulfil its commitments not allowing its territory for operating terrorist activities against India, and act on the evidence India gives to it. “And there has to be credible evidence that they are acting on it,” he added.

He though rejected suggestions like recall of its High Commissioner from Pakistan and economic sanction against it, said that there couldn’t be ‘normal business’ with Pakistan unless it concedes to our just demands. “I do feel still we should continue to put pressure diplomatically through international community to achieve our objectives,” added Mukherjee.

Earlier on Tuesday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also said there had been some positive developments, like direct contact between the DGMOs of India and Pakistan, during past 48 hours, which helped to de-escalate tensions with India.

In another development, any higher authority from Pakistan admitted for the first time that the perpetrators of the Mumbai assault could be Pakistani nationals.

Pakistan's National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani told a news channel in an interview “there could be…that’s all I will say right now while the investigations are still going on.”

NSAs comment is significant as Pakistan has officially denied so far any link with the Mumbai terror attacks and also has denied to acknowledge Mohammad Azmal Kasab, the lone survival terrorist in the Indian custody, as Pakistani national, even after a letter —saying he and other nine gunmen who attacked Mumbai are from Pakistan — written by him forwarded to the Pakistani authorities in this regard.