Indo-Pak relations should be hostage to Kashmir issue : Benazir

New Delhi, July 16 (UNI) Former Pakistan Prime Minsister Benazir Bhutto today said Indo-Pak relations should not be held hostage to Kashmir ''dispute'' and assured that she would close down all terrorist camps on Pakistani soil and arrest all terrorist leaders if she returned to power.

In an interview with a television news channel here the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader said that although Kashmir continued to be the ''core issue'' with every Pakistani, it should not be allowed to stalemate the overall relations with India.

Expressing ''deep pain at the tragic events'' (bomb blasts) in Mumbai and Kashmir last week, she said such incidents were giving Pakistan a bad name and endangering ''Pakistan's existence'' even though no connection had been established between the bomb attacks and Pakistan.

However, she said she would close down all terrorist camps on Pakistani soil and arrest terrorist leaders like Maulana Masood Azhar, who are hiding in Pakistan, if she came back to power and was given the executive powers.

Right now such powers lay with the President.

''There will be no delay and no change of mind,'' she asserted.

Standing by the Shimla Agreement, which her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had signed with the then Indian Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi, Ms Benazir said her party would adhere to the UN Security Council Resolutions on Kashmir.

That, however, did not mean that relations between the two countries would not be allowed to progress in other spheres.

Citing the example of China, she said India and China had some bilateral problems, But they were progressing in other fields keeping aside the border issues.

She said her party supported the UN resolutions on Kashmir until the Kashmiris found way to settle the issue themselves.

Outlining her vision of South Asia as a region with open border and a common economic forum like the European Union, Ms Bhutto said she wanted to have a South Asia Economic Union.

She, however, remained non-committal on granting India the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status.

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