Kissinger’s dialogue with Awami Leader
KARACHI, JULY 10 – Foreign diplomatic sources here said President Nixon’s Security Adviser, Dr. Henry Kissinger, was conferring today in strictest privacy with Dr. Kamal Hossein a leading member of the Awami League reports Reuter.
There was absolutely no way of confirming the report which if true signals the most serious effort at finding a basis for a political solution to The Bangladesh crisis.
Dr. Hossein who was Mr. Mujibur Rahman’s constitutional and foreign policy expert, escaped an Army net in March, but was later reported to have surrendered. There has been no subsequent word of him, but it is widely believed that he is being kept under house arrest.
The sources said he was taken today to the seclusion of the hill resort of Nathiagli, about 100 km north of Rawalpindi.
Dr. Kissinger has been at Nathiagali since yesterday and postponed his planned departure for Paris for 21 hours after an announcement of an unspecified illness.
American diplomats here knew nothing of the reported talks, which coincide with a growing conviction among foreign observers that the Awami League is inevitably a key factor in any political settlement.
Diplomatic sources here discounted an earlier rumour that Mr. Rahman himself had been taken to Nahtiagali for talks.
Dr. Hoseein is the only member of Mr. Rahman’s high command to be made captive apart from the leader himself. In the 10-days abortive talks in March he was in the Awami League’s team which negotiated with President Yahya Khan’s aides in Government House.
Dr. Kissinger arrived in West Pakistan on Wednesday.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 11.7.1971