M A I N   N E W S

UK renews defence ties with Pak
Blair lauds Musharraf’s stand

Islamabad, October 5
In major concessions for supporting the fight against terrorism, Britain today announced renewal of defence cooperation with Pakistan, suspended since the 1998 nuclear tests, and said Islamabad had a valid interest in a broad-based post-Taliban government in Afghanistan.

After an hour-long meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, British Prime Minister Tony Blair also promised London would help Pakistan with a fresh package of assistance.

Britain would also support steps in the European Union for trade and economic cooperation with Pakistan on which an agreement was likely on Monday, Mr Blair told reporters with General Musharraf by his side.

Mr Blair, who later left for New Delhi for discussions with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on terrorism, said Britain and Pakistan had agreed that any post-Taliban government in Afghanistan must be broad-based and include all key ethnic groups, including Pashtoons.

Mr Blair, the first Western leader to visit Islamabad after terror strikes in the USA, said he came to thank Pakistan for its stand and to make clear that any punitive action against terrorist mastermined Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan would not be directed against the Afghan people or the Islamic world.

Mr Blair declared that any military action against Afghanistan should be proportionate, targeted and “not directed against the Afghan people, who are not our enemy.”

He said the September 11 terrorist attacks in the USA were a crime against humanity, and that Pakistan’s decision to back US-led efforts to combat terrorism would lead to improved relations with the rest of the world. Mr Blair said he was convinced Bin Laden was behind the attacks.

Mr Blair praised General Musharraf’s decision to back the US-led campaign against Bin Laden and the Taliban, the ruling Afghan militia that shelters him. PTI, AP

Protest against USA, UK in Pak

Islamabad, October 5
Several thousand pro-Taliban Islamists today demonstrated in central Pakistan to condemn the USA and the UK for their possible plans to hit Afghanistan in retaliation for the September 11 terrorism in the USA.

The show of support with Afghanistan’s defiant rulers was staged in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, where barely an hour later British Prime Minister Tony Blair was to land for a brief visit.

Maualana Fazlur Rehman, head of the fundamentalist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) party, led the demonstration and warned the USA against launching any attack on Afghanistan.

“We are waiting for a crusade to start,” he said in his address to the gathering of mostly students from Islamic seminaries. He called on the USA to settle the issue over Osama bin Laden through negotiations with the Taliban. If the USA used force, it would become terrorist itself, the cleric said. DPA

Blair, PM talks today
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 5
British Prime Minister Tony Blair flew in here late tonight from Pakistan on an unexpected working visit to have talks tomorrow morning with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the sensitive issue of the post-Taliban arrangement in Afghanistan.

Diplomatic sources here believe that his visit’s central theme is to discreetly find out the views of Afghanistan’s key neighbours like Pakistan, India and Russia on what kind of government they would like to see after the Taliban government falls.

This is also an indication that the much-awaited US-led forces’ attack on Afghanistan is now very much imminent.