ISLAMABAD, July 25: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Friday delivered a message from Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali.
The message, whose contents were not disclosed to the media, reportedly contains various options for a solution of the Kashmir issue and ways to resume talks before or after January when Mr Vajpayee is expected to visit Islamabad to attend the Saarc summit.
Maulana Fazl, who returned after a 10-day visit to India on Thursday, called on Mr Jamali at his residence and briefed him on his meetings with various Indian leaders.
Mr Jamali reiterated Pakistan’s desire to resolve all disputes with India through negotiations and said Islamabad was ready to take more confidence-building measures to move the peace process forward.
The prime minister assured Maulana Fazl, who is also chief of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, that he was odetermined to resolve the LFO tangle as well and added that he would leave no stone unturned to find a solution at the talks slated for Sunday.
At his 105-minute meeting with the prime minister, the Maulana was accompanied by MMA’s deputy parliamentary leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and Senator Maulana Naseeb Gul. Both were part of the delegation that visited India.
In reply to a question about the contents of Mr Vajpayee’s message, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said: “The message was a trust which has been conveyed to the person it was meant for”.
He said the JUI delegation had obtained permission from the MMA’s top leadership before embarking on the visit and added that it would present its report to the MMA leadership about its activities in India.
Referring to Vajpayee-Fazl meeting, the Hafiz said the two had agreed to a great extent that a lack of will on both sides and inadequate homework had contributed to the failure of Lahore Process and Agra Summit.
Mr Vajpayee, he said, desired that solutions to the disputes between the two countries should be found within next one year after which he planned to leave office.
Hafiz Hussain said the Indian premier had agreed to a request of Maulana Fazl to come to Islamabad to attend the Saarc summit instead of sending his foreign minister, as was earlier scheduled.
Maulana Fazl also apprised Mr Jamali about his meetings with Indian opposition leader Sonia Gandhi and leaders of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the RSS who, he said, wanted peaceful resolution of all issues.
Prime Minister Jamali hoped that the opposition would approach the internal political disputes in the same spirit as it had shown while trying to resolve the disputes between India and Pakistan.
Asked whether Maulana Fazl would also like to brief President Gen Pervez Musharraf on his visit, the Hafiz said: We have paid this visit as members of parliament and have met and briefed the prime minister who is leader of the house”. Neither we met the Indian president nor do we need to meet Gen Musharraf on this issue, he stated.
