Author:
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: September 9, 2005
URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050909/wl_uk_afp/indiabritain&printer=1;_ylt=AprPTyJpQVMt_LUW.reGSPXjOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that the
world had been reluctant to recognise the insurgency in Indian-ruled Kashmir
as terrorism.
"Personally I have always condemned terrorism
in respect of Kashmir," Blair told NDTV television in an interview recorded
while he was in New Delhi Thursday for talks with Indian leaders but broadcast
on Friday.
"But I think there has been a reluctance
-- not confined to the UK alone incidentally -- to see this terrorism for
what it is ... but the world has woken up."
New Delhi has since 1989 battled an Islamic
insurgency in its part of the divided Himalayan state of Kashmir in which
at least 44,000 people have been killed.
India accuses Pakistan of aiding, arming and
funding the Muslim rebels and of allowing them to set up training bases on
Pakistani soil.
Islamabad denies the claims and charges that
Indian troops are perpetrating wide-scale human rights abuses in Indian-ruled
Kashmir.
The picturesque region of Kashmir, which both
countries claim in full, has been the spark of two of three wars between the
now nuclear-armed rivals since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
India has in the past asked Britain, the United
States and other countries to use their influence with Pakistan to ensure
that the "infrastructure of terrorism" is shut down, but has complained
that its calls go unheeded.
Blair said: "Terrorism is not only an
obstacle to progress -- and that is true whether it is Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Kashmir, Chechnya, wherever -- The fact is, all it does is cause hatred and
make dialogue impossible.
"And therefore my very strong view is
that we should never compromise with it, we should never justify it, and we
should realise that it is in our common interest to defeat it."
Blair's comments came just days ahead of the
anniversary of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks and just over two months
after the July 7 attacks in London in which four suicide bombers killed 56
people.
Terrorism was a steady theme running through
Blair's two-day stopover in India after a visit to China.
On Wednesday, India and the European Union
at their sixth summit adopted a plan to strengthen ties, including in the
fight against terrorism. Blair was representing the EU presidency.
On Thursday, Blair won Indian support for
a draft UN Security Council resolution that would commit countries to combating
incitement to terrorism as well as terrorism itself.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said
he favoured a "zero tolerance" approach toward terrorism, speaking
at a press conference addressed by both leaders at the end of Blair's New
Delhi visit.
"Terrorism has no religion, terrorists
have no religion and they are friends of no religion," Singh said.
"We agreed that there can be no justification
whatsoever for terrorism on any grounds -- religious, political, ideological
or any other."
In the latest Kashmir clash, Indian troops
early Friday shot dead three suspected Islamic militants along the de facto
border dividing the Indian-ruled and Pakistan-ruled sides, a police spokesman
said.
He said the suspected rebels were killed when
they snuck into Indian Kashmir's Poonch district, across the Line of Control,
from the Pakistani-administered zone of the divided region.
