May 6, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, May 5: Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali held talks with the country’s top politicians on Monday in an act to demonstrate national unity in the planned peace moves with India.

An official statement, issued after about three hours of talks at the Prime Minister’s House, quoted Mr Jamali as telling the politicians that he wanted to take all political parties into confidence “before initiating a meaningful dialogue with India to discuss all outstanding issues, including Kashmir”.

He categorically said, according to the statement, that “we are not under any sort of pressure to initiate dialogue with India nor do we are taking this step in haste”.

The primary motive for planned talks with India was “to ensure a better future for our coming generations,” he said.

Some of the politicians who attended the meeting told reporters later that the nation should be united in dealings with India, but complained that the government had no agenda for Monday’s talks and the prime minister only informed them about what he had talked to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during a telephone call last week.

The official statement quoted Mr Jamali as saying his dialogue offer to India was motivated by “the highest consideration for peace and in the larger national interest of both the countries” and hoping that the Indian leadership would respond positively.

It said leadership of different shades of political opinion lauded the prime minister’s initiative to take them into confidence and thought the move would help evolve “a national consensus in the highest interest of the country and the nation”.

“They expressed the view that no effort should be spared to forge unity in our ranks...at this critical juncture of our history,” the statement said.

“They also stressed the need for submerging all sorts of political, regional and parochial differences into a broad national consensus (and that) the latest turn in Indo-Pakistan relations augurs well for the future and the opportunity be seized to build a solid foundation for enduring peace.”

Mr Jamali had invited the leaders of political parties belonging to both the ruling coalition and the opposition to take them into confidence about the latest peace moves.

The aim seemed to be to give a message to India and the world that the Pakistani government and the opposition parties could take a united stand on relations with New Delhi despite strong political differences.

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri did not attend the meeting, but Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed was present in his official capacity.

Those who attended the talks included PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, PPP chief Amin Fahim, MMA leaders Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Liaquat Baloch, PML-N acting president Javed Hashmi and National Alliance leader Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari. Other participants from the ruling coalition included Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal, PPP-Sherpao chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Syed Safwanullah, PML-F’s Abdur Razzak Thahim, PML-J leader Hamid Nasir Chathha, PML-Z leader Ejaz-ul-Haq, and from opposition ANP leader Asfandyar Wali Khan.

Local reporters, except the state media, were barred from entering premises of the Prime Minister’s House where the talks were held.

PML-N leader Javed Hashmi complained that there was no agenda for the talks and said Mr Jamali heard more than he talked.

He accused the military rulers of sabotaging previous talks with India.

Mr Hashmi said Mr Jamali had been informed about his party’s position on Kashmir and that “we will not let LoC become an international border”.