No improvement in Indo-Pak ties until Kashmir issue is resolved: Gohar Khan

C K Arora in Washington

Pakistani Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan has virtually ruled out the possibility of any meaningful progress in India-Pakistan bilateral relations, unless the ''core issue'' of Kashmir is dealt with and resolved."

''It (Kashmir) cannot be put on the back-burner and it has to be defreezed. We cannot have it lying there because, for Pakistan, the core issue is Kashmir,'' he said while replying to questions after a speech at the Henry l Stimson Centre, a Washington-based think-tank.

He said this was what he had told Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral when he met him in New Delhi last month during a Non-Aligned Movement foreign minister's meeting. Gujral was then minister for external affairs in the Deve Gowda government.

Ayub Khan, however, said there would be no breakdown of Indo-Pak talks as long as he was foreign minister. Pakistan was prepared to patient and go along with a step-by-step approach to settle all issues, starting with the ''core problem of Kashmir,'' he said.

An Indian journalist asked: "Does it mean that there can be no progress in other issues, including trade, without the settlement of the Kashmir dispute?"

The minister, in reply, said ''We will take up all issues together. Foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet between June 19 and 22 in Islamabad and address all issues. There will be rules made for all issues.''

Khan, who arrived on Sunday for a three-day visit to the US, is scheduled to meet Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Tuesday. He will also meet Defence Secretary William Cohen. He is the first member of the Nawaz Sharief government, which assumed office in February, to visit the US.

The minister also spoke of the possibility of Pakistan supplying power to India from the Indus river and extending to India the proposed gas and oil pipelines it intended to build between Central Asia and Pakistan.

''All these things could be done, provided we sit down and solve our problems, he added.

Khan also referred to the Gujral-Sharief meeting in Male on May 12 and said ''while it is still premature to conclude that a solution to the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir will be reached, we believe that the climate is right to speak hopefully of it.''

''We will continue to urge India to work with us to find, for the core issue, a solution that reflects the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir,'' he said, adding ''the US can play a role to encourage our talks.''

In a tough speech, the Pakistan minister said, ''for 50 years, the people of this disputed territory have been deprived of their inalienable right to self-determination. This is a right accorded to them by history, by both Pakistan and India, and by the international community through resolutions of the United Naitons security council.''

''Kashmir," Khan said, "is a flashpoint where the largest concentration of troops are deployed eyeball to eyeball along the Line of Control. India maintained a force of about 700,000 troops in Kashmir," he added.

When Shyamala Cowsik, deputy chief in the Indian embassy,sought to challenge the figure of troops, Khan remarked: ''The thing is the people. What do the people want. Kashmiris want freedom and, Inshallah, they will get it.''

The minister blamed India for the arms race in the sub-continent. ''The threat to our security is augmented by the conventional Indian military build-up supported by an ambitious nuclear and ballistic missile programme,'' he said.