May 9, 2003	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1424

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NEW DELHI, May 8: The American invasion of Iraq and last year’s state elections in Jammu and Kashmir were the trigger for India’s fresh peace overtures to Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said on Thursday.

Stressing that no opportunity should be wasted to improve relations with Islamabad, Mr Vajpayee gave a few insights into his famous telephone chat with Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali. Significantly, he seems to have told Mr Jamali that both countries could fight terrorism together.

“I have always told my Pakistani friends that one can change friends but not the neighbours,” Mr Vajpayee told the Lok Sabha, winding up a debate on India-Pakistan peace moves. “One way forward is to live as neighbours and friends. The other way is to become a laughing stock for the world with our daily fights.”

He said that was the reason why he went to Lahore. He denied opposition charges that neither the 1999 summit nor the Agra Summit of 2001, had been really thought through before the talks.

“It is wrong to say that I wasn’t prepared for Lahore or Agra. I cannot be held responsible if Kargil happened because of the differences between (Pakistan’s) army and the government. Their prime minister had to resign.”

When Mr Vajpayee claimed that Kashmir was not mentioned in the Lahore Declaration, he was interrupted by the Congress party’s Mani Shankar Iyer, who read out the document in which resolution of Jammu and Kashmir was clearly mentioned as an objective.

“We decided in Lahore that Kashmir was too complicated to resolve immediately, so we decided to focus on other ways to move forward,” Mr Vajpayee had said.

Responding to Mr Iyer’s comment, the prime minister said yes true but Kashmir was not made the issue in Lahore as had later happened in Agra. “That’s why (President Pervez) Musharraf had to go home empty-handed.”

Mr Vajpayee claimed that his policies had led to a military victory in Kargil. He also spoke of his sincere though unsuccessful attempts to hold a ceasefire against militant groups in Kashmir.

In what could be a significant revelation, Mr Vajpayee said the militant groups in Kashmir were not one cohesive formation and that they sometimes turned upon each other.

“When the Pakistan prime minister called and said let’s play hockey, I said suppose there is a hockey match between India and Pakistan and then we get the news that terrorists have killed 50 innocent people in Jammu. What then?

“That’s why this aid to terrorists must end. We are fighting them in our country. I said we must fight terrorists together.”

Mr Vajpayee then used an Urdu idiom to express his slow and cautious approach to Pakistan. “Doodh ke jaley ko chhachh to phoonk phoonk ke pina parta hai,” he said. (Roughly — Once bitten twice shy.)

But, he said not seeking peace for fear of failure would not do either.

He chided opposition leader Sonia Gandhi for not considering what he said were “successful elections” in Jammu and Kashmir.

“These two issues, the elections in Kashmir in which people came out to vote facing bullets and what happened in Iraq, really forced me to think of my current move,” Mr Vajpayee said.

He said the invasion of Iraq by the United States and the complete marginalization of the United Nations had posed a challenge as well as a triggered worry for developing countries and non-aligned members.