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NEW DELHI, Jan 2: In a continued escalation of its focussed rhetoric, India dismissed on Thursday President Pervez Musharraf’s implied threat to use nuclear weapons as nonsense, but said its army would maintain a close vigil on the border despite a recent pullback of troops.
Assuming office on Wednesday as India’s 21st Chief of Army Staff, General Nirmal Chandra Vij, was quoted on Thursday as saying that “the strategic relocation of troops” now under way would place troops in “maintainable positions” so that the country was not caught off guard.
Outlining his priorities for the army, Vij, a Kargil conflict-decorated hero, said emphasis would be on keeping the army in the highest state of preparedness to consolidate the gains of Operation Parakarma, the year-long forward deployment of troops on the India-Pakistan border.
Responding to President Musharraf’s remarks that India would face an ‘unconventional’ war if its troops crossed the Line of Control (LoC), Vij said: “No responsible army chief could make such a statement.”
ADVANI: Keeping up the political flank of the attack on Pakistan’s stance towards India, deputy prime minister Lal Krishan Advani said international pressure on Pakistan to end alleged cross-border terrorism had not worked.
“International pressure does not work beyond a point on any country. There will be no dialogue with Pakistan till it stops abetting cross-border terrorism and dismantles the terrorist infrastructure,” he told reporters in Delhi.
Asked if there was any change in the level of “terrorist infiltration” into Jammu and Kashmir, Advani said: “Infiltration has not come down. There may have been a change because of snow blocking the mountain passes.”
Pakistan had not shown any change in its policy towards “state sponsorship of terrorism”, Advani alleged.
“I do not see any prospects of resumption of Indo-Pak talks. There might have been a change in Islamabad’s words but not in action,” he said when asked about Musharraf’s offer to hold a dialogue with India.
“We would win the war against terrorism with our own might,” he said, adding that India did not need to prove “its anything” to the world after having taken peace initiatives with Pakistan in spite of the 1999 Kargil conflict.
FERNANDES: Adding a cynical flavour to the overall anti-Pakistan stance, Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said on Thursday Musharraf’s recent remark that Pakistan could step beyond conventional warfare if it had to defend its territory was “nonsense.”
He recalled that Musharraf had previously apparently retracted a statement that Pakistan would exercise all options, including the nuclear one, in the event of a war.
General Musharraf, he said, had later denied it, saying only a mad man could talk about nuclear strikes. “There’s no logic in his recent statement,” Fernandes said.
Earlier, in Hazaribagh, Advani told a gathering there was absolutely no pressure on India to start talks with Pakistan.
Advani, who laid the foundation stones for several development projects, said: “Any world leader who visits Pakistan asks it to stop terrorism .... But no international leader ever tells the same to India. Rather, they ask India to fight against terrorism,” he said.
Star News quoted Advani as saying that talks with Pakistan were not likely in the foreseeable future.
