|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Saturday, 3 January 2004 |
 |
|
 |
World | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
India: China won't shelter rebels fleeing Bhutan NEW DELHI, Friday (AFP) India said that China had assured New Delhi it would not shelter Indian rebels fleeing a crackdown in Bhutan. Foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said Beijing denied receiving a letter from an Indian rebel leader asking for safe passage into Tibet. "The Chinese government has stated that it has not received any such letter," Sarna told reporters. "China has said that it has always followed the policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and will not allow its territory to be used by anybody for activities against other countries." Arabinda Rajkhowa, chief of the United Liberation Front of Asom, had in a letter received by media in the troubled Indian state of Assam asked Chinese President Hu Jintao to give safe passage to rebels fleeing Bhutanese forces. Bhutan, which is closely tied politically to India, on December 15 launched its first military campaign in modern times to oust Indian separatists who defied six years of warnings to leave. Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, who left Thursday to attend a regional summit in rival Pakistan, called for other members of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to follow Bhutan's lead. "What Bhutan has done is clearly their larger than life example before the other SAARC countries, and clearly it is an example worth emulating by all those countries where terrorism takes shelter or terrorists take shelter," Sinha said at the airport. Indian officials have charged that rebels fleeing Bhutan have set up new bases in Bangladesh across the porous border with Assam. Bangladesh denies permitting any anti-Indian militants to operate from its soil. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
