QUETTA: President Mohammad Ayub Khan has ruled out the possibility of America and Britain being associated with the forthcoming talks between Pakistan and India on the Kashmir issue.

Talking to newsmen at Samungly airport on his arrival here on a three-day visit, the President said that settlement of the Kashmir dispute was essentially a matter between Pakistan and India.

He also told pressmen that the Indo-Pakistan talks were not to be held under the aegis of the UN.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner in India, he added, had been directed to make contact with the Indian Government to settle preliminaries, including the time and place for the forthcoming ministerial level talks between the two countries.

The President reiterated that Pakistan was determined to settle this protracted dispute with India through peaceful means and secure the right of self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. —Correspondent

China has no designs against E. Pakistan GENEVA: A high-ranking Chinese diplomat said today (Dec 10) that China had no territorial designs against East Pakistan. He was commenting on reports published in one section of the Dacca Press during the recent fighting in the NEFA area. Those reports, influenced partly by panic at the time and partly by Indian propaganda, had spoken about the danger to East Pakistan from Chinese advance in the Bomdila area.

Expressing surprise at the alarm created in the minds of some East Pakistanis, the Chinese diplomat said that East Pakistan had no reason whatever to fear China for “we have no border problem with East Pakistan”. Besides, he went on to say, China has very friendly relations with Pakistan.—Correspondent