Islamabad Quotes

In February, India and Pakistan agreed to restart peace talks on all issues. In May, Indian parliamentarians visited Islamabad to advance the cause of peace. In July, Foreign Minister Rabbani Khar visited New Delhi. A month later, MPs from both countries met in India to continue deliberations. In September, Pakistani and Indian railway officials met to help boost connectivity and trade," he said at the eight-member regional summit that opened here in Addu. And in the past few days, Pakistan improved trade links by deciding to grant India the status of Most Favoured Nation. Today, the Pakistani and Indian Prime Ministers met in the lovely setting of the Shangri La in the Maldives. (Mohamed Nasheed)

Around the globe, nations are turning these words into action. Members of the United Nations are sharing intelligence with one another, conducting joint operations, and freezing terrorist finances. While terrorists continue to carry out attacks like the terrible bombing in Islamabad last week, our joint actions have spared our citizens from many devastating blows.

George W. Bush

We were impressed with the size and scope of the Persian Gulf as we traveled to Islamabad, Pakistan.

Jon Porter

The Telegraph dated May 14 carried a PTI report datelined Islamabad, May 13: "Pakistan's minister of state for religious and minority affairs, Mr. Maqbool Ahmed Khan, said today that the petition against the Quran moved in the Calcutta high court was the ‘worst example of religious intolerance.' The Pakistan President. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, was quoted by an Urdu daily as saying that the facts of the case were being ascertained. Mr. Khan alleged that religion and life and property of minorities were unsafe in India and urged the Indian government to ‘follow the example of Pakistan' in ensuring freedom of religion.... Thus the theocratic state of Pakistan made it an occasion for delivering lectures to Indians on the subject of religious freedom and the rights of minorities. Nobody who was anybody in India at that time is known to have reacted to this assault from an Islamic state which had driven out most of its Hindu minority, and was treating the rest as non-citizens.

Sita Ram Goel

I was in Pakistan in Islamabad when Bhutto was assassinated, and the next day, you know, there's just plumes of smoke everywhere. I mean, Islamabad is on fire.

Henry Rollins

Jinnah's Pakistan died on March 26, 1971, with East Bengal drowned in blood. Two senior West Pakistanis had, to their credit, resigned in protest against what was about to happen. Admiral Ahsan and General Yaqub left the province after their appeals to Islamabad had been rejected. Both men had strongly opposed a military solution. Bhutto, on the other hand, backed the invasion. "Thank God, Pakistan has been saved,” he declared, aligning himself with the disaster that lay ahead. Rahman was arrested and several hundred nationalist and left-wing intellectuals, activists, and students were killed in a carefully organized massacre. The lists of victims had been prepared with the help of local Islamist vigilantes, whose party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, had lost badly in the elections. Soldiers were told that Bengalis were relatively recent converts to Islam and hence not "proper Muslims”-their genes needed improving. This was the justification for the campaign of mass rape.

Tariq Ali