ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Sharief says India will step across LoC and 'cross our threshold of tolerance'

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief today repeated his warning that military action in Kashmir by India would "certainly mean that the threshold of our tolerance has been crossed, with unforeseeable consequences."

"There was a real possibility of provocative Indian military action across the Line of Control in Kashmir," Sharief said in an interview to the Islamabad daily, The News.

"Indian leaders think that since they have acquired nuclear muscle, they can force Pakistan to give up its principled stand on Kashmir," he said.

Sharief is under pressure from demands at home to counter India's latest nuclear tests by testing Pakistan's own nuclear capability against advice from abroad not to do so.

He said he would not allow Pakistan to be engulfed in the same madness as India, but defended its right to go for the option that serves its national interests best. Asked why he considered the international reaction to India's nuclear tests disappointing , he said the international community failed to focus on the security threat created for Pakistan, and the sanctions imposed on India were "more or less irrelevant".

Corporate America is already clamouring for 'business as usual' with India, he said.

Further, the international community, specially the major powers, are preoccupied with non-proliferation. "Our preoccupation is with our security," he said.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report