20000316

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT

Meanwhile US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Tuesday told a meeting of Asia Society that President Clinton was going to Pakistan because the US had interests there which were important and urgent.

"Our interests include avoiding the threat of conflict in South Asia, preventing proliferation, and to help create an environment of regional peace and security and reaching out to a people whose history is one of friendship with the United States," she added.

About Kashmir, she referred to her father, Josef Korbel, who as a diplomat at the UN worked on the Kashmir problem and wrote a book from which she quoted a line: "The history of Kashmir is a sad story". Then she added; "He is now dead and I am old, and yet still this tragic story goes on".

Albright added that both India and Pakistan have exploded nuclear devices and have all the more reason to avoid an armed conflict, and all the more reason to restart a discussion on ways to build confidence and prevent escalation. India and Pakistan today must find some way to move forward. The process is not one that the international community can prescribe for them.

"We only know that it will take courage Ñ but not the courage of soldiers".

She said 'tangible steps' must be taken to respect the Line of Control, adding "for so long as this simple principle is violated, the people of Kashmir have no real hope of peace".

Albright said Pakistan's influence on its neighbour Afghanistan will be high on the President's agenda.ÑAPP