Pakistan minister denies training Kashmiri rebels

ISLAMABAD, Wednesday (Reuters) Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied a newspaper report that he ran training camps for Kashmiri militants fighting Indian rule in the country.

"I never ran any militant camp. I have nothing to with any militancy or guerrilla warfare," Ahmed told Reuters.

He said he had provided shelter to Kashmiri separatist leader, Yasin Malik, and other Kashmiris when they arrived in Pakistan after an insurgency erupted in Indian Kashmir in 1989.

"Being a Kashmiri, I have to provide them bread and butter. But there was nothing more than that," he said.

Malik, one of nine separatist leaders in Pakistan to discuss the future of the Himalayan region with leaders of Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, said he was misquoted in a report published by Pakistani newspaper Daily Times. "It is unfortunate.

I never spoke of gun or training camps with regard to Sheikh Rashid (Ahmed)," Malik told Reuters. "What I have said is that ... he provided hospitality when we were just on the roadside." But India's Foreign Ministry said Malik's "revelation ... is a matter of great concern". It renewed India's charges that Pakistan was not doing enough to curb cross-border movements of militants into Indian Kashmir.