Pakistan News And Discussion-9

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pakistani journalists walk out of briefing
Nirupama Subramanian


Upset over spokeswoman's statement

"Pakistan never claimed Kashmir as part of its territory" "We are not the ones that had a forced union"

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistani journalists walked out of the weekly Foreign Ministry briefing on Monday shaking their heads in disbelief at what they had just heard the spokeswoman say inside - that Pakistan had never claimed Kashmir as an integral part of its territory.

The spokeswoman said this when asked to clarify President Pervez Musharraf's remarks to NDTV that Pakistan would be willing to give up its claim on Kashmir if India were to show similar flexibility in the search for a solution to the issue.

<b>"We were brought up on the Kashmir Banega Pakistan [Kashmir will join Pakistan] slogan, that Kashmir belonged to Pakistan," said one senior journalist after the briefing, confessing to being "totally confused."</b>  <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->

At the briefing, asked about that slogan, spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam had simply said: "That is a slogan of Kashmiris, not of Pakistan." She added that it was Pakistan's hope that, were a plebiscite held, Kashmiris would choose Pakistan over India.

<b>When a journalist asked about "the fate of Azad Kashmir [Pakistan occupied Kashmir] in this new situation," Ms. Aslam retorted: "Which new situation? Do we say that Azad Kashmir is part of Pakistan? Azad Kashmir has its own president and prime minister. If we are claiming it as an integral part of Pakistan, we would have had a governor and chief minister there." </b>

<b>One agitated journalist asked why Pakistan had invested so heavily in military and diplomatic efforts in the name of Kashmir if it had no claim to it in the first place.</b>  <!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Another asked if this had been the actual position all along, had Pakistani politicians deliberately misrepresented it to the people.

But the spokeswoman was unmoved. As the questions flew, she kept repeating her statement about Pakistan never having claimed Kashmir as an integral part of its territory, only hoping Kashmiris would choose to join Pakistan in the event of a plebiscite. She asked people to look up history books.

"Please, I think you need to go back and study Pakistan's historical position from 1947 to this date. We are not the ones that had a forced union and then claimed that territory," she said. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->