Kosygin, Heath asked Yahya not to close door of negotiation?
From Our Special Correspondent, NEW DELHI July, 10.—The Soviet Premier, Mr. Kosygin, and the British Premier Mr. Heath, wrote personal letters to President Yahya Khan of Pakistan in the third week of June. These were time to reach him well before his broadcast of June 28 on the Bangladesh problem and constitution making in Pakistan.
The two premiers are presumed to have written in the hope that the Pakistani military dictator would not shut the door for a political settlement of the problem.
If that was so, they must have been made feel awkward by President Yahya’s broadcast. In it he reiterated his determination to suppress the Bangladesh movement by force of arms and refused to give even a modicum of democratic rights to the people of his country.
The Soviet Union, which has stopped supplies of military stores to Islamabad, is reported to have written some time ago to President Yahya for the safety of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
It is said that it has become doubtful if Britain will give any economic aid until conditions settle down in Bangladesh.
Diplomatic circles in Delhi say that Dr. Kissinger, adviser to the US President, Mr. Nixon, was to have tried to find out from President Yahya if his statement of June 28 was his last word on the Bangladesh problem. What the trend of the discussion between President Yahya and Dr. Kissinger was is not known.
Dr. Kissinger will report to Mr. Nixon on his talks in New Delhi and Islamabad. In some diplomatic circles a hope is being entertained that the USA, forced by pressure of public opinion and President Yahya’s unyielding stand, may yet modify its policy on military and economic aid to Islamabad.
In the State Department lobbies for both India and Pakistan exist. Accustomed to the concept of Pakistan since the days of the cold war, Washington has shown greater readiness to listen to Pakistan than to India. The US Ambassador in Islamabad has always had greater influence on the State Department than his counterpart in New Delhi has had.
When Dr. Kissinger was in New Delhi, India representatives sought to impress upon him the forces that were at play in Pakistan and had brought about the upheaval in Bangladesh. Dr. Kissinger sought to explain away the despatch of military stores by the USA to Islamabad since March 25 by saying that it was due to a bureaucratic bungling. At the same time, he claimed that if supplies of arms were stopped USA would lose the leverage it had on Islamabad and China might come to have it.
New Delhi told Dr. Kissinger that the USA could not have it both ways. It was strange that he would be blaming bureaucratic bungling for the supply of arms to Pakistan and in the same breath justify the supply.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 11.07.1971