NEW DELHI, Sept 5: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was quoted on Thursday as saying that New Delhi was prepared to talk with any government that takes power in Pakistan after the October polls there.
But he ruled out a bilateral meeting with President Pervez Musharraf in New York even though they will pray together in a 9/11 vigil.
“It is for Pakistan now to re-establish trust and confidence by first stopping its sponsorship of cross-border terrorism and dismantling the infrastructure that supports terrorism directed against India. Only then can India resume a dialogue with Pakistan,” Vajpayee said in an interview to Saudi daily Arab News published on Thursday.
“We are prepared to deal with whichever government is in power in Pakistan. The question for us is not who is running Pakistan but what policies they adopt towards India. If Pakistan continues to sponsor terrorism against India, we cannot engage in dialogue with it at the same time,” he said.
The Times of India in a dispatch from Washington said Vajpayee and Gen Musharraf will be standing virtually shoulder to shoulder next week with other world leaders in a candle light vigil in New York for victims of the 9/11 catastrophe.
“But they will not talk to each other, at least not formally,” the newspaper said.
While there is a strong likelihood that they might make informal contact because they will be at the Battery Park event at the same time, Indian officials were quoted as saying no formal meeting or talks have been scheduled.
“Whether the gravitas of the moment — a memorial service for the nearly 3,000 victims of terrorism — will bring about a mood change is still in the realms of conjecture. But the Indian feeling over Pakistan’s perceived betrayals and perfidies is still so strong that even US officials hold no hope of a meeting at this time,” the Times said.
It said as usual, the two leaders will also be staying within a few blocks of each other in crowded Manhattan — Prime Minister Vajpayee at the New York Palace or Walfdorf Astoria and Gen Musharraf at the Pakistan-owned Hotel Roosevelt. Each will have plenty of other bilateral meetings with other world and regional leaders. But not with each other.
“I don’t think there is any likelihood of a bilateral meeting with President Musharraf,” India’s ambassador to the US Lalit Mansingh was quoted as telling reporters while offering a preview of Vajpayee’s trip.
In his interview to the Saudi newspaper, Vajpayee dismissed the suggestion that India had “over-reacted” to the Pakistani incursions in Kargil. He said it was a “necessary act of protection”.
Vajpayee recalled that in spite of the “perfidy” at Kargil he had taken yet another peace initiative by inviting President Pervez Musharraf to Agra last year.
“Not only was the opportunity not grasped by Pakistan, we have been subjected since then to the most violent acts of terrorism sponsored by Pakistan, including an assault on the parliament in Delhi and on the Assembly of J&K in Srinagar,” he said.
Apparently seeking to clear the air about his right-wing Hindu nationalist party in the Arab world, Vajpayee was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying the Bharatiya Janata Party “has never been and never will be a Hindu fundamentalist movement.”
“We have never had the narrow agenda of undermining India’s pluralistic and secular system,” Vajpayee told the daily.
“We believe in secularism, by which we mean sarva dharma sambhava or equal respect for all faiths,” he stressed.
Vajpayee said the BJP is a “national party and a nationalist party. It cannot subscribe to any narrow ideology based on discrimination that is repugnant to traditional national culture.”
“We are wedded to the goal of prosperity and welfare for all our citizens irrespective of their caste, creed, language and religion,” he said.
Asked about India’s pledge that it would never use nuclear weapons first nor would it direct them against non-nuclear states, the Indian prime minister said the imperatives of its complex security environment had compelled India to develop nuclear weapons.
“But we regard our nuclear weapons as a credible deterrence and not as instruments of aggression.”
Vajpayee made it clear that India remained committed not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. “India is not engaged in any arms race with anyone.”
