950824

'India masterminds

crises in held state

to discredit

freedom movement'

NEW DELHI: Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has said in an interview barred from Indian state television that New Delhi has "masterminded" crises in disputed Kashmir to discredit a separatist movement.

But Bhutto said Islamabad was ready to hold bilateral talks provided New Delhi agreed to a two-point agenda including their disagreement over Kashmir.

The interview was conducted by private Indian production company Eyewitness at Bhutto's home in Islamabad on August 8.

Eyewitness said state-run Doordarshan television was to air the interview on August 13 but censors barred the broadcast. Eyewitness provided Reuters with a transcript of the interview on Thursday.

Bhutto spent much of the interview discussing Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.

New Delhi accuses Pakistan of arming and training Muslim militants fighting a five-year-old separatist war in its Jammu and Kashmir state.

Bhutto denied that charge. "We do not arm or train or allow the arming or training of any Kashmiris on our soil," she said, adding Pakistan would offer separatists full political support.

She said Islamabad was prepared to have U.N. peacekeepers at the line of control between Pakistan and India in Kashmir to see whether militants were infiltrating from Pakistan. "But India is not agreeing to that," she said.

The Pakistani leader accused the Indian army of burning down in Charar-e-Sharief in May.

India says Pakistan-backed militants led by Mast Gul were responsible for the razing of the shrine. Mast Gul later escaped Kashmir and received a hero's welcome in Pakistan.

"First I would like to say that Mast Gul had nothing to do with the burning of Charar-e-Sharief," Bhutto said.

Asked if the Indian army burned down Charar-e-Sharief, she said: "Yes. Because there were people they wanted who were holed up there, they wanted to flush them out and that is why they went and committed this sacrilegious act."

Bhutto said Pakistanis admired Gul but the government did not think it appropriate for Gul to have been given a televised parade in Pakistan.

Bhutto also said Indian intelligence agents were believed to have had a hand in the abduction of Westerners in Kashmir by Al-Faran guerrillas in early July. India says Al-Faran is connected to Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Ansar.

"People in Pakistan believe that the Al-Faran group is a creation of the Indian intelligence and that this atrocious act of kidnapping British hostages was masterminded by them to discredit the Kashmiri movement and the Al-Faran group," she said.

"Who are these Al-Faran, and this kidnapping of the British hostages, has it helped the Kashmiris?" she said. "Or has it really helped the Indian government in its propaganda against the Kashmiri uprising?"

Bhutto said Pakistan was very keen to hold bilateral talks but had been rebuffed by New Delhi.

"Yes, I'm prepared to say right now that if India is prepared to have a two-point agenda, the Kashmir dispute and Indo-Pak problems, we're prepared to sit down and talk with them," she said.

"But we're not prepared to sit down and say 'no pre-conditions' because that is a hazy word which means you'll wiggle out." -Reuter