US wanted Bhutto to drop plan to try Bengalis

Washington, Aug. 30: The U.S. has expressed the hope that the three-way agreement reached between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, involving the resettlement of nearly half a million people of the sub-continent, will prove to be “the model for the solution of similar problems in other areas” of the world. This settlement was conveyed to the Indian Ambassador, Mr. Kaul, here yesterday by the acting U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. Kenneth Rush, while officially welcoming the signing of the agreement. Mr. Rush was also appreciative of the fact that a solution in the humanitarian problem had been found by the three nations of the sub-continent themselves, without mediation or interference by countries outside the area. It is, however, now known that the U.S. did urge Mr. Bhutto to reach a compromise settlement with India and Bangladesh — it is learnt, for instance, that in a recent communication to Mr. Bhutto, the U.S. Secretary of State designate, Dr. Henry Kissinger, urged the Pakistan Prime Minister to drop his plan to bring 203 Bengalis held in Pakistan to trial on “treason charges,” as a reprisal for the proposed Bangladesh trial of 195 Pakistani POWs. Mr. Bhutto is said to have accepted this suggestion — and thus removed a stumbling block in the talks — in the expectation that this might ensure him a sympathetic hearing when he comes here next month seeking economic aid (which Pakistan now needs more than ever in the wake of the devastation caused by the floods in the Punjab and Sind) and very possibly a removal of the ban on U.S. arms supplies.