NEW DELHI, Feb 15: Two of India's top communist leaders will make a landmark visit to Pakistan this month, presenting a fresh context to bilateral ties in which the United States will openly be the focus of adverse attention
, official sources said on Tuesday.
The sources admitted that the anti-US content of the unprecedented tour is almost certain to become a delicate factor when they meet President Gen Pervez Musharraf on March 1.
The two-party delegation will arrive in Lahore on Feb 24 and exit from Karachi on March 4, where they are to meet communist and leftist leaders. Later, in Islamabad, they are to also call on Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, who they have already met in Delhi.
The general secretaries of both parties -- Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)'s Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Communist Party of India (CPI)'s A.B. Bardhan - will become the first leaders of the Indian communist movement to visit Pakistan since independence.
The difference is that both parties changed their official position on Kashmir a little over a year ago. From asking the two countries "to resolve all their problems bilaterally", the current formulation says that they should resolve these differences bilaterally, including the issue of Kashmir.
A CPI official explained this meant that India's two main communist parties formally now accept a key role for Pakistan in the resolution of the Kashmir dispute.
However, both parties are fighting shy of the fact that they would meet Gen Musharraf - perceived by a majority of leftists in India as a pro-American miltary dictator. But, as is usual between them, CPI is more "pragmatic", supporting as it does "certain leftist groups who support Gen Musharraf."
The two parties shore up India's ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, a Congress-led coalition headed by the pro-globalization prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. Mr Surjeet and Mr Bardhan will fly to Lahore first, where they expect to be received by a representative of the pro-CPI-M Communist Party of Pakistan.
