USA may block loan to Pak
Pressure to end hostilities

WASHINGTON, June 27 (PTI) — The USA, which supports India’s right to defend itself against Islamabad-backed intruders, could hold up a 100-million-dollar IMF loan to Pakistan next month if the latter does not withdraw its troops and guerrillas from the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC), a media report said today.

"Impoverished Pakistan cannot afford a full-scale war and is counting on receiving a 100-million-dollar loan next month from the International Monetary Fund. Washington could hold up those funds to pressure Pakistan," The Washington Post quoted a senior Clinton Administration official as saying.

However, Washington’s steps will depend on the assessment of Pakistan’s response to President Bill Clinton’s message by Commander-in-Chief of US Central Command (Centcom) Gen. Anthony Zinni, the official told the paper.

President Clinton decided to mobilise the G-8 against Pakistan and sent the Zinni mission to Islamabad last week to get it to withdraw its troops and so-called "Mujaheddin" from the Kargil area after receiving a letter from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee saying casualties among Indian troops could force India to cross the LoC to settle the matter.

At this point, the USA is uncertain whether Pakistan will comply with President Clinton’s demand, the official told the newspaper.

"We are not making any predictions," the official said, "It (the situation) could get worse if the Indians reach the level of frustration that they need to strike elsewhere."

Concern about possible escalation in the fighting arose after Mr Vajpayee’s letter, officials said, because it told President Clinton that the "spectacle of Indian troops coming down from the mountains in body bags was raising public pressure on the government".

"It stoked already high US fears that India, which has lost more than 100 troops trying to dislodge Pakistan, would storm across the ceasefire line (LoC) that divides Kashmir or open a second front elsewhere on its border with Pakistan, widening the first armed conflict between the rivals since both tested nuclear weapons last year," the paper said.

"Clinton feared the possibility that some 700 Pakistani troops, camped on firebases 16,000 feet up in the Himalayas, could destroy the rapprochement India and Pakistan began last winter, ignite a regional war and scuttle the administration’s dwindling hopes of a constructive relationship with all of South Asia".

The US President and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had already sent multiple messages urging restraint and the former decided to turn on the heat on Pakistan after his National Security Advisor Samuel "Sandy" Berger and Assistant Secretary of state for South Asian Affairs Karl F. Inderfurth received Mr Vajpayee’s message.

The paper said first President Clinton persuaded the G-8 countries to include in their final communiqué last weekend a statement condemning the "infiltration of armed invaders" and demanding "full respect for the de facto border known as the LoC."

"The statement did not call for a ceasefire, an implicit acknowledgement of India’s right to defend its territory," it noted.

After that President Clinton sent to Islamabad General Zinni to tell Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his military commanders to pull back to their side of the LoC, it said, adding whether the IMF loan would be blocked would depend on Pakistan's response now.

USA brokering formula

LONDON, June 27 (PTI) — The USA is brokering a "face-saving formula" for Pakistan under which Pakistan-backed infiltrators holed up in Kargil will be allowed to withdraw quietly from Indian territory, the "Sunday Telegraph" reported today.

The deal was sealed during extensive talks between President Clinton’s envoy Anthony Zinni and top Pakistani military brass, including Army Chief Pervez Musharaff and head of the Military Intelligence, Lieut-Gen Ziauddin, on Thursday, the paper said.

The deal envisages a loosening of the Indian Army’s cordon around the strategic Tiger Hills, Marpo La and Batalik heights in Dras and Kargil to allow occupying Pakistani troops and militant groups to withdraw to the Pakistani side, it said.

An Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman, however, said in New Delhi yesterday that no proposal on providing the infiltrators with an "exit corridor" had been received and that they would have to find their way back.

Media reports here said the Pakistani army, which had refused to back out from the heights 10 to 12 km inside Indian territory, was veering round to the formula following international isolation over the misadventure.

The Telegraph said the USA also asked Pakistan to reign in ISI-funded militant outfits, including the Lahore-based Markaz-Al Dawat Walirshad, the umbrella organisation controlling the Lashkar-i-Toiba and the Harkat-ul-Ansar, whose cadres form part of the intruding forces in Kargil.

Media reports here said the USA expressed concern at activities of these groups reportedly acting in close coordination with the Afghan Taliban and the anti-American Saudi terrorist Osama Bin Laden’s Al Badr outfit.

The reports claimed that the Sharif government and the army were trying to blame the other for the misadventure.

"Apparently, the army and the Sharif government want to save face before the public for such an misadventure. The onus would have to more on the army," the reports said.

The Telegraph said Pakistan, which had threatened to use nuclear weapons should India cross the Line of Control, had been isolated in the international community over claims of non-involvement in the intrusions and attempts to internationalise the Kashmir issue.

Pak confirms intrusion across LoC

ISLAMABAD, June 27 (PTI) — A senior Pakistani army officer has confirmed that Islamabad's forces have intruded into the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) in Kargil and claimed if they can manage to hold on to their current position for two more months, India will lose hold over the entire Siachen area.

Brig Tahir Mahmood, leading Pakistani army personnel in the Kargil Sector, told Urdu daily "Nawa-e-Waqt" at one of the forward posts that the Srinagar-Leh highway near the peaks of Dras and Kargil was within the striking range of Pakistani Army at five points.

His statement is a reiteration of the claim made by the official spokesman of Pakistan army Brig Rashid Qureshi about a fortnight ago before a western journalist that the Pakistani Army was now overlooking the highway.

Former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Gen Hamid Gul has also said if the control over the peaks of Dras and Kargil can be maintained for another two months, India's land connection to Siachen will be completely cut-off.

General Gul, during whose tenure as ISI chief militancy in Kashmir had started, wrote in an article in an Urdu daily that after two to three weeks India would not be able to launch any major attack across the LoC due to the onset of monsoons.

He said if India failed to snatch the Dras and Kargil peaks in the next two months, there was the fear of a war after that.

Deal to develop fighter jet likely

BEIJING, June 27 (PTI) — Beijing and Islamabad are expected to sign four agreements, including a deal to develop indigenous fighter aircraft during Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to China from tomorrow, sources here said.

While Pakistani media has named the fighter jet project as Super Seven (S-7), defence sources said it might be the same as the Chinese F-7mg with western avionics and weapons.

Apart from the fighter plane deal, Pakistanis are scouting for weapons and ammunition in view of the escalating tension in Kashmir with India, one source said.

Pakistan’s possible order for the Chinese plane will surely resurrect China’s own fighter aircraft industry which is facing red, he said.

Defence experts, however, stressed that Sino-Pakistani military cooperation agreement on the development of fighter aircraft would further boost the already strong overt and covert military links between the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) and the Pakistan Army.

According to media reports, Mr Sharif, who is arriving here tomorrow for a week-long visit, will be accompanied by a high-level defence delegation led by Defence Secretary Lt Gen (retd) Iftikhar Ali Khan.

Reports said Pakistan and China had already inked memorandum of understanding (MoU) about the S-7 in 1997, which will be formally signed during Mr Sharif’s visit. However, it is not known whether the two sides would publicise the deal.

The S-7 project is expected to meet the fighter plane requirements of both the air forces of China and Pakistan as well as to offer for sale the jet among developing countries. The reports said adding that the first single engine S-7 is expected to fly in 2001 and mass production in 2005.

Other deals expected to be signed during Mr Sharif’s visit include one envisaging cooperation between the electronic media of both countries and another one on setting up of a business council for bilateral trade and business promotion.

A fourth agreement is expected regarding Pakistan’s establishment of consular relations with the Portuguese enclave, Macao which will return to Chinese sovereignty on December 20 this year.

After his three-day stay in Beijing, Mr Sharif will go to south west China’s Kunming city where an international horticultural exposition is currently on. Pakistan is participating in the year-long fair in a big way.

He is also scheduled to visit Hong Kong and meet Chief Executive of the Hong Kong special administrative region Tung Chee Hwa. He is likely to address business leaders there to urge foreign investments into the cash-starved Pakistan.

Mr Sharif visited China in 1991, 1992 and 1998 as the Prime Minister of Pakistan and in 1996 as the Opposition leader.

Mr Sharif told Islamabad-based Chinese correspondents yesterday that friendly relations between Pakistan and China help reinforce stability and security in South Asia.

"I am fully satisfied with our bilateral relations because, apart from being of mutual benefit, they help to strengthen stability and security in the region," he was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.