Pakistan ready to provide Nepal with arms, anti-terror training
11 March, 2005
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| Pakistan ready to provide Nepal with arms, anti-terror training. |
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KATHMANDU, March 12 (Online): Pakistan is ready to provide arms and counter-insurgency training to help Nepal face down an increasingly bloody Maoist revolt, Islamabad's outgoing ambassador here Zamir Akram said in an interview.
"We are ready to share our experience and, hopefully, this will help Nepal," Akram said in the interview with the Rising Nepal published on Friday.
"So, we are ready to help in whatever way we can. Pakistan is also facing terrorist threats on our western border. We have developed some kind of expertise, especially in the use of high-tech equipment by the terrorists," he told the state-run English daily.
"We, within the SAARC level and at the bilateral level, have offered an exchange of information," he added, referring to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) which groups Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
"We have offered possibilities of training. We are also ready to provide arms if that is required by Nepal."
Last month, India and Britain suspended military aid to Nepal after King Gyanendra seized power, firing the government, imposing emergency rule and vowing to tackle the Maoist uprising that has claimed 11,000 lives since 1996.
The United States is mulling similar action amid reports that Gyanendra is considering turning to neighbouring China for arms if the flow of weaponry to help Nepal's ill-equipped army battle the Maoist rebels dries up.
Akram declined to be drawn into commenting on the king's power grab, saying it was an "internal" matter and that Pakistan believed in "non-interference".
"We believe the issue here is peace and security. We believe that the people of Nepal and all the political forces that are operating need to cooperate with each other to find a solution by themselves. This is how we look at it, and we feel the people and the government of Nepal are capable of finding the solution," Akram said.
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