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Militant Kashmiri groups assail Clinton |
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March 27, 2000
Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistan-based Muslim militants fighting India in disputed Kashmir sharply criticized President Clinton Sunday as an enemy of Islam.
During a two-hour meeting with Pakistan's military ruler on Saturday, Clinton pressed Gen. Pervez Musharraf to ease tensions with India and restrain Islamic militants from moving across a cease-fire that divides Kashmir between the two countries.
"Now America is openly siding with India, which shows that all anti-Islam forces are uniting against us," said Fazalur Rehman Khalil, the chief of Harakat-ul Mujahdeen, a group Washington wants shut down for its alleged involvement in terrorism.
Clinton, on the final leg Saturday of his weeklong South Asian tour, also pressed Pakistan's military ruler to make more of an effort to curb terrorism, which would include shutting down groups like Khalil's, and to move forward on nuclear nonproliferation.
Clinton has refused to mediate the Kashmir dispute, unless both India and Pakistan agree. India has flatly rejected international mediation.
Khalil said Clinton's refusal to broker talks to end the 52-year-old dispute was a disappointment. "He has refused to become a mediator and instead has asked Pakistan to crush the people who are fighting a just cause," Khalil said in an interview with The Associated Press.
For more than 10 years militant Muslims have waged a secessionist insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir, demanding either outright independence or union with Islamic Pakistan. The portion of Kashmir that India controls is the only Muslim-majority region in predominantly Hindu country.
Source: Bangla2000 News
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