Search the Internet          Tips

West must ask Pak to close down terror camps: British leader

Western countries must prevail upon Pakistan to take action to close down training camps for militants in Kashmir failing which they run the risk of adopting double standards in the war against terrorism, a top British leader has said.

"The West needs to make representations to the newly elected Government of Pakistan that action must be taken to close down the training camps for militants in Kashmir, whether or not the government is directly responsible for them," Baroness Shirley Williams, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, said.

The Baroness was in Jammu and Kashmir last month as part of a delegation of Liberal Democrat parliamentarians.

"Not to do so is to live by double standards. It is also to lose the best chance for a long time of peace in what should be a Himalayan paradise," she said. "Most of the militants cross over from Pakistan, having been trained in the many training camps close to the line of control between Pakistan and India. The degree of official involvement by Pakistan's government, in particular its powerful intelligence agency, remains in dispute."

"What is undeniable is that the infiltrators obtain money and fairly sophisticated weaponry from somewhere to sustain their terrorist attacks," she said in a forthright article in the magazine, The Tablet.

The Liberal Democrat leader said the US and Britain 'find the whole Kashmir business embarrassing'.

Tell us what you think of this report