Relevant excerpt from Colin Powell's press conference on June 4:
With respect to India and Pakistan, it's a situation that continues to concern usdeeply. I spoke to president Musharraf over the weekend, once again encouraging him to doeverything to restrain all activity and all activity across the line of control. When thattakes place in a way that is obvious and demonstrable to all, then we would call uponIndia to take the de-escalatory steps so we can start moving in the other direction.
I'm pleased that both sides in the last several days have once again discussed thenon-use of nuclear weapons and both sides realize that this is a threshold that we do notwish to see crossed. It would be absolutely horrible in the year 2002 for any nation touse nuclear weapons in a situation such as this, and I'm glad that both nations haveresponded in a responsible manner to that concern on the part of the internationalcommunity.
Advertisement
Deputy Secretary Of State Armitage, I spoke to Mr. Armitage this morning. He will beheading to the region tomorrow to speak to both leaders. As you also know, both leadersare in Almaty in Kazakhstan, where they'll;ll have the opportunity to speak to PresidentPutin of Russia and President Jiang Zemin of China and other leaders who I'm sure willexpress their concerns about this situation and encourage both sides to find a politicalsolution. So we will continue with the full-court diplomatic press that we've hadunderway, with my Deputy going in, and then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will beheading into the region in another week to ten days' time. After he concludesmeetings in NATO and visits in the Persian Gulf, he will be going to India and Pakistan.
