NEW DELHI, April 27: India on Sunday appeared to distance itself from the rush of enthusiasm for talks with Pakistan it had itself generated, saying that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s offer of friendship with Islamabad was not new and that New Delhi’s old conditions to resume a dialogue still applied.
“What Vajpayeeji has said in Kashmir or in parliament is not different from what we have been saying all along as far as talks with Pakistan is concerned,” Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani said in an interview with the Times of India.
“Our conditions remain the same. He (Vajpayee) only made it sound like it was a new appeal,” Mr Advani said in the remarks published on Sunday.
His remarks came ahead of next month’s peace mission to India and Pakistan by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. It also coincided with this week’s visit to Washington by India’s National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, who is expected to meet a number of top US officials.
Mr Advani is himself slated to visit Washington in June at the invitation of Vice President Dick Cheney.
When asked if a new US ambassador to replace Robert Blackwill, expected to be a career diplomat, would mark a shift in US policy towards India, Advani said: “We have to wait and see.”
In the interestingly timed interview, the deputy premier criticized the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, saying he would not give any special invitation to its members to join talks initiated by New Delhi’s new pointman for Kashmir, N.N. Vohra.
“The (Indian) government is ready to talk to all groups willing to participate in the peace process and within the constitutional framework,” Mr Advani said. “But the government will not give out a special invitation to the Hurriyat since it is not the only representatives of the Kashmiri people.
“After all, the Hurriyat has not tried to stop violence in the (Kashmir) Valley. It does not displease Pakistan and even receives money from them. The only thing Indian about it is that it belongs to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. So it has to come up to talk.”
The APHC last week decided to boycott the Vohra mission, saying that it would talk only to the highest political leadership in New Delhi.
