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In a hard-hitting rejoinder to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's description of terrorism in Kashmir as "freedom struggle', Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday charged Islamabad with opportunism and asked it to decide whether it wanted peace or not.
"Our neighbour sometimes sings about peace and sometimes threatens us. I want to tell them that they should decide what they want," Vajpayee said addressing a Sikh gathering at his residence in New Delhi.
Vajpayee said it was Islamabad which trained and armed the Taleban. "Where is the Taleban now? Now our neighbour is waging a war against the same Taleban. Who will trust them? If we are friends, we are real friends. We stand by our friends and are ready to pay any price for it. There is no opportunism in our policy nor are our policies dictated from outside," he said.
Referring to Musharraf's repeated description of terrorism in Kashmir as "freedom struggle," he asked: "Whose freedom are they talking about and freedom from whom. India is a free country with a Constitution, Parliament and free media. What is the condition in Pak-occupied Kashmir, where there are no elections and no democracy?" he asked.
PTI
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