Foreign Office here has said it would oppose any move to disband or withdraw the United Nations' Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) until full resolution of the Kashmir issue. Answering the questions at his weekly news briefing here on Monday, the official spokesman, Jalil Abbas Jillani, said Pakistan respected the mandate given to the UNMOGIP., and it should stay until the cause for its creation disappeared. The Military Observers patrol the two sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir and monitor the cease-fire arranged by the United Nations between Pakistan and India in 1948.
He told a questioner that the present Line of Control in Kashmir was not a permanent boundary but a temporary arrangement and its would cease to exist when a solution of Kashmir dispute between two countries was arrived at. He confirmed bilateral talks between Defence Secretaries of Pakistan and India on the Siachin glacier would be held on May 25 and 26, and on the demarcation of Sir Creek on May 27 and 28. The talks would be held at Islamabad as India hosted the last meeting that had remained inconclusive.
He said a statement, attributed to the Indian External Affairs Minister on Siachin, was what New Delhi has said from time to time, but Pakistan stood by the agreement reached between the two countries in 1989. According to that agreement, the forces of the two countries were required to withdraw to the positions they held before the Simla Agreement, signed between late Z A Bhutto and Indra Gandhi on normalisation of relations between the two countries.
The spokesman said Pakistan should not sign the Non-proliferation Treaty until it was recognised as a nuclear power. Jillani also confirmed that Pakistan, as well as India, had received the World Bank's communication on the appointment of a panel of neutral experts to examine the position of Baglihar Dam, that India was building, in contravention of the Indus Waters Treaty, upstream on Chenab River. Pakistan, he added, had already returned its comments on the World Bank's suggestion, and hoped that New Delhi would send its response within 15 days from the receipt of proposal, for the WB to proceed further. He said the time limit expires on May 9.
He told a questioner that talks on Kishanganga, another disputed location, where India was building another dam, would be held between Pakistan and India this week at Islamabad. He said the Indian delegation would be arriving here on May 7. The spokesman hoped that it would be possible to settle the Kishanganga issue through bilateral talks, otherwise that would also have to be referred to World Bank.
About the proposed UN reforms, the spokesman reiterated that Pakistan did not want "new centres of powers" in the Security Council, by expansion in its permanent membership. As far as Japan's candidacy for the permanent seat on Security Council was concerned, it had a different approach, because of the special relations it had with Japan. The question came up for discussion during the Japanese Prime Minister's recent visit to Pakistan.
Jillani rejected suggestions that Pakistan had changed its stand on Kashmir, and said that it would not accept a solution, which did not meet the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. He also reiterated the "deep regards the Pakistan government had for Syed Ali Gillani of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference of Kashmir" and paid tributes to his sacrifices for the cause of Kashmiri people.
He said Pakistan was not concerned with the Indian military exercises near the international frontier, as those were within the parameters of an agreement between Pakistan and India, arrived at in 1991, under which the two countries were to forewarn each other before holding any exercises.
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