Pak inaction won’t affect talks: Antony

Feb 12, 2010

New Delhi, Feb. 11: Defence minister A.K. Antony on Thursday said the Indian government was willing to resume negotiations with Pakistan despite not being fully satisfied by Pakistan’s anti-terror efforts since "Indo-Pak relations always have a huge bearing on regional peace and security".

Pointing out that "there is no attempt on the part of the government of Pakistan to dismantle terrorist outfits (operating from Pakistani or Pakistan-controlled soil)", Mr Antony, however, said this would not affect "our considered decision to start negotiations with Pakistan". The minister said that "almost all the 42 terrorist outfits operating from across the border ... are intact", adding that there seemed to be a "calculated policy" behind the increase in infiltration attempts this year (from across the border into J&K).

When asked why then the government had offered resumption of talks with Pakistan, Mr Antony said, "We feel even though we are not fully satisfied by the actions taken by the government of Pakistan because still they are not taking any action against terror outfits, but at the same time we find that they have taken some action as per our wish. India has taken a conscious decision (on offering resumption of talks) after seeing that there is some signs of taking action from the government of Pakistan. We took a conscious decision to take the initiative from our side."

On China, the minister said, "We (India) are carrying out continuous appraisals of its (Chinese) military capabilities." He added that India is only seeking to "build an effective deterrent capability to safeguard ourselves" and that Sunday’s successful test of the (nuclear-capable ballistic missile) Agni-III (capable of hitting targets well within China with a range of 3,500 km) is "not aimed against any particular nation".

Delivering his presidential address at the Asian Security Conference in the national capital on Thursday, the minister revealed that India had last year completed the process of destroying its chemical weapons.

Age Correspondent

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/4696" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-77c566812f68f745b476a6e2918154b7" value="form-77c566812f68f745b476a6e2918154b7" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88403317" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>