Pakistan's UN envoy underscores urgency of tackling Indo-Pak tensions

NEW YORK - The United Nations Monday withheld comments on a letter written to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon by Pakistan's U.N. Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon underscoring the urgency for easing the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan in the wake of last week's terrorist strikes in Mumbai.
"I'm not aware of the receipt of the letter from the Pakistani ambassador," the secretary-general's spokesperson, Marie Okabe, said when asked for the UN chief's reaction. She said that the secretary-general was on his way to New York from Doha where he attended a U.N. conference on financing and development.
The letter was also sent to the President of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann and all the 192 members of the United Nations.
Although Ambassaador Haroon's letter calls on the international community to play its role in averting a conflict in South Asia, it did not specifically ask the U.N. to play any role. However, he proposed that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice be sent to the region to "bring about rapprochement and rapport between the aggrieved countries to avoid conflagration."
Questioned whether the UN chief would take steps to defuse the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, the spokesperson only reiterated his strong condemnation of those attacks in which nearly 200 people were killed and many more wounded.
"He (the secretary-general) also joins in the call by Indian authorities for full cooperation by all concerned, both inside and outside the country, with their investigation," she said.
"The Secretary-General was among the first to express his strong condemnation of these attacks as well as his sympathy and solidarity with the government and people of India. That solidarity extends to other nations who lost citizens in these heinous attacks," the spokesperson added.
Referring to the tensions on the subcontinent, Ambassador Haroon said, "India should not widen the area of conflict."
"Pakistan and India have to help each other to contain the elements of
anarchy and to stop them in their track", Ambassador Haroon said in the
letter released on Sunday, in which he said the Mumbai attacks were aimed at accomplaishing al-Qaeda's objectives.
"Due to the urgency of the situation the Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice should rush immediately to South Asia to bring about rapprochement and rapport between the aggrieved countries to avoid conflagration, Ambassador Haroon added.
He reiterated Pakistan's condemnation of the terrorist attacks and said his government was ready to cooperate in the investigating the crime. "We mourn the death of 200 people in India and we ask them to mourn with us as we lose more than that number every week and in the shared grief, let us work together".
Following is the text of the letter:
Excellency,