KISSINGER AND YAHYA TALK
East Pak Economy to Be Revived?
President Nixon’s Special Adviser on National Security matters, Dr. Henry Kissinger, had talks lasting one and a half hours with Pakistan’s President Yahya Khan in Islamabad Thursday.
Earlier, Kissinger had a 60-minute meeting with Pakistani Officials.
Only a brief, one-sentence statement on President Yahya’s talks was issued by the Government. It did not mention topics discussed.
The US envoy arrived at midday from New Delhi, where he had talks with Indian leaders.
Kissinger had dinner with President Yahya Thursday night. Thursday afternoon. the Pakistan President’s economic adviser, Mian Muzaffar Ahmed and the Foreign Secretary, Sultan Mohammed Khan, called on Kissinger at the President’s guest house.
Reliable sources said they discussed steps taken by Pakistan on her cwn initiative as well as through International agencies to facilitate the return and rehabilitation of Pakistani refugees from India.
Since May 21, President Yahya has issued four personal appeals to Pakistanis who crossed over into India during the recent disturbances in East Pakistan to return to their homes.
East Pakistan’s Martial Law Administration followed up the appeals with declaraton of an amnesty for returning Pakistanis reception centres were set up to transport returned refugees to their homes.
Kissinger was also said to have discussed with officials the need for reviving East Pakistan’s economy, badly hit by the province’s recent turmoil.
The General situation in Southeast Asia was also viewed, the source said.
Kissinger, who started his fact-finding trip through Asian countries with a visit to South Vietnam is understood to have outlined US views on the Vietnam situation.
Late Thursday night it was announced that Friday’s programme for Kissinger had been cancelled.
This programme would have included talks with Army Chief-of-Staff General Abdul Hamid Khan and as second meeting with President Yahya. But an official statement said Kissinger would instead spend the day at Nathigali, a mountain health resort about 60 miles (96 kms) northeast of here.
The statement said it would be a working holiday for Kissinger, because Pakistani officials who were to meet him in Islamabad, would now have talks with him in the cool heights more than 8,500 feet (about 2,600 metres) above sea level. These would include Ahmed and the presidential adviser on food agriculure and Kashmir affairs.
Asking for asylum
Meanwhile the Pakistan Embassy in Paris said Thursday that two East Bengalis who announced Wednesday they had asked for asylum in France were clerk rather than diplomats.
The Embassy spokesman said one of the men was under orders to return to Pakistan Wednesday while the other had been given notice that he was due to go back.
Both transfer were routine and had nothing to do with discrimination against them or against East Pakistanis serving in the Embassy, the spokesman stated.
The two men, Moucharaf Hussein and Souerate Ali, both Married told the French Radio Wednesday night they had asked for asylum because they had been ordered to return to West Pakistan where they feared for their safety.
They said they had been harrassed by other Embassy officials since March when the Pakistan Army began its campaign against Bengali nationaists in East Pakistan. Informed sourcs confirmed that Hussein and Ali had approached French anthorities about asylum. Possibilities though there was no official comment from the French government. Dismissing the charges of discrimination, the Embassy spokesman argued that the second and third, highest ranking Pakistan diplomats were from East Pakistan, as was the commercial counsellor-Reuter.
Reference : The Djakarta Times, 10.07.1971