NEW DELHI, June 2: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, facing pressure from opposition parties to hold talks with President Pervez Musharraf, said on Sunday that he would watch the Pakistan leader’s steps against terrorism on the ground before considering a bilateral meeting with him.
Vajpayee is expected to come face to face with Gen Musharraf in Almaty during a summit meeting on Tuesday of the recently created Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
Speaking to reporters before leaving for Kazakhstan, the brainchild behind the 16-nation grouping, Vajpayee said terrorism would top the agenda at the first CICA summit.
“Kazakhstan understands our concerns and shares our views on the growing threat of terrorism. Terrorism will be discussed at the summit and a declaration will be issued at the end of the summit. The leaders I will meet include Russian President Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin. I will apprise them of the ongoing terrorism being controlled and run from across the border and the cause of the growing tensions in the region,” Vajpayee said in remarks at the airport .
“During the last few days, we have observed the statements being made by Gen Musharraf and during this time I have also spoken to President Bush and Prime Minister Blair. If there is solid proof of Gen Musharraf’s assurances being implemented on the ground, then we will examine the situation seriously and take appropriate steps,” he added.
Both India and Pakistan have come under increasing international pressure to avoid risking a nuclear war over their dispute on Kashmir. Main Indian opposition groups were quoted on Sunday as saying that a meeting between Vajpayee and Gen Musharraf in Almaty could help reduce the tension.
Speaking to The Indian Express on the eve of Vajpayee’s departure, head of the Congress party foreign affairs cell K Natwar Singh said: “I don’t understand Vajpayee’s reluctance to meet Musharraf at Almaty. Musharraf won’t snatch away Kashmir from Vajpayee’s pocket.”
Singh said the Almaty Summit provides Vajpayee an excellent opportunity to get leaders like Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin to “work” on Gen Musharraf. It was also an opportunity for Vajpayee to tell the Pakistan leader to his face that he had failed to deliver on his Jan 12 address.
He should tell him: General Sahib, aap kya chahate hain? Ek aad vada to pura kar do. (What do you want? Why don’t you fulfil a couple of your promises.),” Singh said.
While stressing that the Congress would support any step the Government takes to tackle the problem of cross-border terrorism, the former diplomat who drafted the party’s foreign policy resolution for the recent AICC session, was quick to add that India and Pakistan must avoid a war at all costs.
He suggested a three-point formula for this. One, they should both take immediate steps to see that the prevailing tension in the region is reduced. Two, the government must give some thought to resuming the dialogue process with Pakistan, maybe not now but in one, two or three months. And three, the government should keep its powder dry and not lower its guard like it did after Vajpayee’s Lahore visit so that India doesn’t face another Kargil or Kaluchak.
Apart from a Vajpayee-Musharraf meet in Almaty, other measures he felt would help reduce tensions were the implementation of the eight confidence-building measures contained in the Lahore Declaration and gagging the cacophony of voices emanating from the government and the rightwing Hindu groups, all members of Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Diplomacy needs precision. In matters of such importance and delicacy, only the National Security Advisor or the official spokesman should speak. Here we have L K Advani saying something, George Fernandes saying something else and (Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader) Giriraj Kishore demanding that India use nuclear weapons against Pakistan. It’s bizarre and only arouses the wrong kind of passions,” Natwar Singh was quoted as saying.
All left parties have cautioned the government against war-mongering, accusing Vajpayee of seeking to mask the government’s communal agenda with a dose of jingoism.
On the vexed issue of resuming a dialogue with Pakistan, Singh recalled that even at the height of the Vietnam War, the United States and North Vietnam were talking to each other. “The diplomatic window should always be kept open,” he stressed. This was emphasised by Congress president Sonia Gandhi as well in her presidential address at the AICC session.
Putin, who has offered to help in defusing the standoff between New Delhi and Islamabad, is expected to meet Vajpayee and Musharraf separately on the sidelines of CICA in a bid to find a solution to the present crisis.
Vajpayee has now extended his visit to Kazakhstan by a day apparently to have his first meeting with Jiang and impress upon the Chinese leader to ask Islamabad, Beijing’s closest post-Cold War ally, to take firm steps to end cross-border terrorism.
Besides India, Russia, China and Pakistan, CICA members include Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey and central Asian states. The US, Japan and certain other countries enjoy observer status.
Many foreign nationals in India, mostly American and British, left New Delhi last night. The growing fear of a wider conflict between nuclear rival neighbours India and Pakistan prompted the United Nations on Saturday to tell its staffers in the region to send their families home.
France, Israel and South Korea also joined the list of nations advising their citizens to leave the region.
