Joint Statement Following Discussions With the President of Pakistan.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON and President Ayub have had frank, wide-ranging, and productive talks for the past 2 days. President Ayub's visit has given the two Presidents the opportunity to renew their warm personal acquaintance and to recall with pleasure their respective visits to Pakistan and the United States in 1961.

The two Presidents discussed at length recent events in south Asia, including the tragic conflict between India and Pakistan. In this context, they reaffirmed their Governments' support for the U.N. Security Council resolution of September 20, 1965, in all its parts, as well as the resolutions adopted on September 27 and November 5, 1965.

President Johnson reaffirmed that the United States regards as vital to world peace the preservation of the independence and integrity of Pakistan and expressed the continuing interest of the United States in Pakistan's economic and social development. President Ayub reaffirmed the importance that Pakistan attaches to a close and cooperative relationship with the United States and expressed the continuing desire of his Government to contribute to this objective.

The two Presidents agreed on the need for a peaceful resolution of all outstanding differences between India and Pakistan, so that the energies and resources of the peoples of the subcontinent would not be wastefully diverted from their efforts to meet their vitally important social and economic problems.

Within the context of a review of worldwide developments, the two Presidents discussed in depth the problem of achieving peace and stability in southeast Asia. They expressed the hope that the conflicts in that area would be peacefully resolved. They agreed that their diplomatic representatives would remain in close touch on these wider and critical Asian problems.