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CNN Live Sunday

Pakistan Denies India Shot Down Pakistani Aerial Drone

Aired January 06, 2002 - 15:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We begin right now with the escalating standoff between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. Pakistan is vehemently denying that India shot down an unmanned Pakistani spy plane today. India says it fired at the plane after it intruded into Indian air space in Kashmir. It happened hours after both leaders of those two countries left a summit without agreeing on how to ease tensions.

CNN's Maria Ressa has more from New Delhi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A busy day for India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. It begins in Nepal at the end of a regional summit, a handshake with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaff, which does little to ease tensions between the nuclear rivals.

It ends in India's capital, a meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair. Now a joint declaration, its focus on terrorism, giving the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament the same importance as the U.S. attacks on September 11.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Terrorism is terrorism wherever it occurs, whoever are its victims. There has to be a complete rejection of these types of terrorist acts, and the support of them in any shape or form at all.

RESSA: Words India hopes Mr. Blair will take to Pakistan when he meets with Mr. Musharraf on Monday. India says Pakistan supports who operate on Indian soil. If Pakistan stopped helping these groups, India says it would be ready to talk.

ATAL BEHARI VAJPAYEE, INDIAN PRIME MINISTER: We are already ready to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that Pakistan, all issues, including the war in Kashmir.

RESSA: But Pakistan makes a distinction between terrorists and freedom fighters. That is what Pakistan calls the groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. And it acknowledges giving these groups diplomatic and moral support.

I.K. GUJRAL, FMR. INDIAN PRIME MINISTER: You know, Musharraf should not be allowed to confuse issues. That is what he's trying to. He's trying to say that it is a part of Kashmir. Indian -- attack on Indian parliament was not an attack on Kashmir.

RESSA: Still, under international pressure, Pakistan arrested nearly 300 Islamic militants over the past week, including the heads of the two groups India claims were behind the parliament's attack. Both groups have been banned by the U.S. and Britain as terrorist organizations.

(on camera): India is asking the West to apply the same standard to Pakistan as it did to Afghanistan. Giving one clear definition for terrorism, India says, is the only way to stamp it out worldwide.

Maria Ressa, CNN, New Delhi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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