Summit Talks Idea Dismissed
Sinister Bid to Shift Focus from Bangladesh Struggle. From Our Special Representative NEW DELHI, July 14 Suggestions for a meeting between Mrs. Gandhi and Gen. Yahya Khan are seen here as having a sinister motivation as part of a bid to shift the focus from the Bangladesh struggle by seeking to covert it into an India-Pakistan dispute.
Informed sources today dismissed the idea of summit talks because the main job of West Pakistan rulers should be to work for a political settlement with Bangladesh. India, therefore, can be expected not to encourage the idea, if and when it is put to New Delhi. The suggestion, it is noted, has emanated indirectly though Islamabad’s inspiration. The same is India’s reaction to proposals for mediation-mediation has to be between West Pakistan and Bangladesh representatives and not between India and Pakistan.
The summit idea is viewed here as part of Pakistan’s attempt to change the complexion of the crisis confronting it. The process started with ICAO meeting where a queer twist was sought to be given to the hijacking incident: then came West Pakistan’s publicity build-up on the Indian hand” behind the East Bengal struggle, and the obsessive talk in world capitals by Gen. Yahya Khan’s economic adviser Mr. Muzaffar Ahmed, about Indian “intervention” in Pakistan’s “internal affairs”
That some sections in other countries were taken in by West Pakistan’s campaign was evidenced by the type of queries put to Mr. Swaran Singh during his tour, at some places for instance he was asked whether there was any chance of “accommodation between India and Pakistan.”
IRRELEVANT
Talk of mediation between New Delhi and Islamabad, too is considered here irrelevant. The two Irish parliamentarians, Sir Anthnony Esmonde and Mr. William Loughnane, who had mooted the idea of mediation during their two-day stay here today clarified the point. They told correspondents on arrival in Calcutta that their suggestion was directed at Pakistan. Obviously they were thinking in terms of mediation between West Pakistan and East Bengal. They plan to talk to Gen. Yahya Khan about it during their visit to Pakistan.
Informed sources also saw no logic behind the talk of U. N. observers for India and Pakistan. There is no question of posting observers on the troubles in Pakistan”. They said.
Meanwhile the comments of a noted U. S. broadcaster, Mr. Murray Kempton, on the American attitude towards the Bangladesh crisis have been noted with considerable interest. He talks of a plan to give $70 million economic aid thus: Mr. Nixon’s seems to be one of those Governments which have only to act to be immediately found out. This unfortunate habit was confirmed again last week when the Secretary of State, Mr. Rogers, attempted secretly to help the Pakistan’s get a $70.000.000. economic aid grant from this country, and clumped so noisily about the backstairs that he was caught at once and his efforts dashed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
He added: “We are by now, of course rather used to seeing Mr. Nixon’s associates being clumsy in matters where it is most essential to be delicate. This ineptitude has by now ceased to be a mystery. What remains to puzzle, however, is the continued solicitude of our Government for the convenience and desire of the Pakistanis.
“Pakistan is, after all the good friend of Communist China, which ought to have cost it the trust of our tough-minded, Its Army also happens at this moment to be awash in the blood of the Bengalis. Which cost it the disgust our tender-minded. If there could exist a national without a friend in the USA, it ought to be Pakistan, which has a proCommunist foreign policy and a domestic practice close to genocidal.
Yet the Pentagon cherishes Pakistan: and our Secretary of State, traditionally the Pentagon’s valet, turns out to be Pakistan’s poorlyconcealed advocate.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 15.7.1971