Novosti Press Agency (APN)

THE Indo-Pakistani military conflict is not just a horrible disaster for the long-suffering peoples of the two countries, it is a threat to universal peace and security. History, specifically the history of our turbulent 20th century, has proved irrefutably that peace on earth is indivisible. Having flared up at one place, a military conflagration always tends to spread to other areas and aggravates the entire international situation.
This is why the bloodshed on the Indian subcontinent cannot leave any peace-loving state indifferent. This is why every effort should be exerted to put an immediate end to the bloodshed and this can be achieved solely through a political settlement in East Pakistan, on the basis of respect for the lawful rights and interests of its people.
Without such a settlement no normalisation on the Indian subcontinent is possible. The chief cause of the tragedy is that the military authorities of Islamabad refused to recognise the will of the East Pakistani population expressed during the election campaign. Instead, they hit it by mass reprisals forcing millions of people to seek refuge in India.
Soberly assessing the situation and striving to prevent the worst, the Soviet Government has repeatedly urged the Government of Pakistan to stop reprisals and solve the acute problems facing the country by a democratic way. Unfortunately, the Pakistani authorities left these calls of the USSR unheeded. Obviously they did so largely because other great powers took a different stand with regard to the dangerous actions of Islamabad: false impartiality, as was done by the United States, or open encouragement of the military adventure, as was done by China.
The Soviet Union has always strived to maintain friendly relations both with India and Pakistan. It has always done everything so that the two young states which recently acquired independence could live in peace and accord, devoting all their efforts to raising the well-being of their peoples.
As is known, owing to the initiative and mediation of the Soviet Union Indo-Pakistani talks ended in success in January 1965 in Tashkent and helped eliminate the threat of a conflict on the Indian subcontinent at that time.
Apart from purely humane motives, the Soviet leaders have other important reasons for preserving peace on the Indian subcontinent. The Soviet Union cannot shut its eyes to the fact that this area is in close proximity to its southern borders.
It was only natural that the Soviet Union recalled this in the recent Tass statement issued in connection with the Indo-Pakistani military conflict. The statement notes that the USSR cannot remain indifferent to the current developments in the area, considering the fact that they take place in direct proximity to its borders and, therefore, infringe upon the interests of its security.
The Soviet Government considers that the governments of all countries should refrain from steps which, one way or another, would mean their involvement in the conflict and bring about a further aggravation of the situation.
Speaking on December 7 in Warsaw at the 6th Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev stressed that the Soviet Union stands resolutely for an end to the bloodshed on the Indian subcontinent, for a peaceful political settlement of the problems that have arisen, taking into account the lawful rights of peoples, without any interference of outside forces, for creating conditions for a lasting and just peace in that area.
(APN, December 14, 1971)