Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Musharraf offers N-disarmament

Pakistan is targeted for democracy which may mean Musharraf is afraid for his job because this nuclear disarmament proposal plays right into the U.S. DPG agenda.
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The classified document, known as the Defense Planning Guidance, also envisioned maintaining a substantial U.S. nuclear arsenal while discouraging the development of nuclear programs in other countries.
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-Am

Musharraf offers N-disarmament

Saturday, June 18, 2005

* Pakistan, NZ agree to cooperate in agriculture, education and health

AUCKLAND: Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Friday he has proposed nuclear disarmament with India to ensure peace and stability between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Gen Musharraf said Pakistan had gone “much further” than proposing a no first-strike nuclear policy in order to build confidence between the South Asian rivals.

“We have suggested (nuclear) disarmament and reduction of forces,” he said. Pakistan also opposes nuclear proliferation and was “against any other country acquiring nuclear weapons,” he told reporters after talks with New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark in the northern city of Auckland.

Clark said she hoped recent confidence-building measures between the two neighbours “might extend into the nuclear arena”. Musharraf said he was committed to a “rapprochement” with India, and was working with its Prime Minister Manmohan Singh toward that goal. Progress toward ending the decades-old fight over Kashmir was being made, he said.

“We see light at the end of the tunnel in our efforts to resolve the Kashmir dispute once and for all,” he said, adding that the “opportunity must be grasped”. “I have no doubt it can be resolved,” he later told the Auckland Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Musharraf and Clark discussed terrorism, trade and human rights in their talks on Friday. The Pakistani president spoke about the situation in Afghanistan. New Zealand officials have described relations between the two countries as “friendly but slight” and Musharraf said the relationship needed to be strengthened. “We need to expand our relations beyond a shared passion for cricket,” Musharraf said after the talks. Clark appreciated Pakistan’s role in the fight against terrorism. She said New Zealand would assist Pakistan in the fields of education and primary healthcare.

Musharraf said Pakistan would sponsor its students seeking higher education in New Zealand. Clark said her government would look into ways to accommodate Pakistani students. Both nations said they are keen to expand trade links. Current two-way trade is worth less than $71 million a year. He said in a television interview that Pakistan wants to learn from New Zealand’s advanced agricultural industry. “We are an agrarian society, we are the fifth largest milk producer in the world and I know you are experts on agriculture, dairy, on livestock. We have to learn from you this way,” he said.

He said Pakistan as well as the rest of South and Central Asia were “being left out of the loop” of economic advancement in East Asia and Australia and New Zealand. President General Pervez Musharraf also met New Zealand’s Governor General Dame Silvia Cartwright on Friday. On Saturday, Musharraf was scheduled to visit a dairy farm, a museum and high-tech company. He is due to fly to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday morning. agencies


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_18-6-2005_pg1_1