LARKANA: Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto said here tonight [Feb 24] that the lifting of the 10-year-old United States embargo on the export of military equipment to Pakistan is a contribution to the stability and security of the region in which Pakistan and India are both placed. In a statement the [PM] allayed Indian fears on this count and regretted that the lifting of the embargo was being strangely interpreted in India. Actually India has nothing to fear ... he said, and added that Pakistan was determined to pursue the path of normalisation ... charted out in the Simla Agreement. News agencies [Meanwhile in New Delhi,] Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced ... the deal with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. Under the agreement, the Sheikh will take over the government tomorrow [Feb 25] in occupied Kashmir. Mrs Gandhi also disclosed that the Sheikh had to drop his ongoing demand for a plebiscite to determine the future of Kashmir.

Mrs Gandhi released a copy of a letter sent to her by the Sheikh in which he committed himself to keeping Kashmir in India. ...

Within minutes of her statement Sheikh Abdullah said ... that the idea of a plebiscite ... had now become irrelevant.