PAKISTAN-INDIAN AGREEMENT

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25364, 11 December 1947, Page 7

PAKISTAN-INDIAN AGREEMENT

Kashmir and Jute Duty Not Settled PARTITION ISSUES DISPOSED OF (Rec. 8 p.m.) NEW DELHI, Dec. 10. The Indian Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Vallabhbhai Patel) told the Constituent Assembly in New Delhi today that India and Pakistan had completely agreed on all outstanding partition issues, including those affecting the armed forces. Problems which had been submitted to the Arbitration Tribunal appointed to settle matters upon which the Partion Council could not agree would now be withdrawn. The question of Kashmir was not submitted to the Council. Mr Patel said that India and Pakistan had agreed on the division .of assets and liabilities, including sterling balances, military stores, ordnance factories, and the division of the cash balances which the undivided Indian Government possessed on August 14, 1947 (the day before the partition), and on the ratio in which the uncovered debt of the uiidivided Government of India would be shared. They were anxious that all issues, including Kashmir, should be settled simultaneously as far as possible. The Delhi correspondent of “The Times” says: “Mr Patel’s announcement that agreement has been reached between India and Pakistan on all outstanding issues relating to partition, including those affecting the armed forces, will be welcomed by all who have been watching with apprehension the steady worsening of relations between the two Dominions.

“Yet realism impels the admission that Mr Patel made no mention of the dispute over Pakistan’s recent imposition of an export duty on raw jute leaving East Pakistan for manufacture in India. The Indian Government regards this as a violation of the standstill commercial agreement, and holds that it should form part of a comprehensive Customs Union or of a settlement yet to be negotiated. “Co long as this controversy persists, economic relations between the two Dominions will be strained, and there is evidence that already it has dislocated dealings in many other . commodities.

“Similarly, the knowledge that the Kashmir dispute remains unresolved must moderate public satisfaction over the present agreement.” ' What the Lahore correspondent of “The Times” calls “an insuperable difficulty” is at present preventing India and Pakistan from reaching agreement on Kashmir. “It arises.” he says, “from the timing of the proposed plebiscite among the Kashmiris to decide the State’s future. Pakistan is insisting on the withdrawal of lhe Indian forces at the same time as the evacuation of the tribal invaders, as a precedent condition to the plebiscite. India is insisting on the tribesmen’s withdrawing before the Indian forces, arguing that the tribesmen’s presence in Kashmir proves Pakistan’s inability to control or influence them.”