LAHORE, May 10: A six-member PPP delegation returned from a two-day goodwill visit to India on Wednesday, assured by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that New Delhi wanted to resolve all outstanding issues with Islamabad, including that of Kashmir, through talks and peaceful means.
Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who led the group comprising legislators, told reporters that the Indian prime minister while speaking to the delegation had said that his country wanted to resolve all issues peacefully and promote contacts between the peoples of the two countries.
The delegation had met the Indian leader on Tuesday.
“This is a matter between the two governments; we don’t want to get involved in it,” replied Mr Fahim when it was pointed out that on the very day Mr Singh was talking of settlement of disputes peacefully, his defence minister had alleged that some five dozen training camps were still operating in Pakistan and in case militancy in occupied Kashmir did not come to an end, New Delhi would send in more troops to the area.
“When people’s government comes to power in Pakistan, we’ll handle the situation in a better way,” said the PPP leader.
Answering another question, he said India, Pakistan and the representatives of Kashmiri people should sit together to resolve the Kashmir dispute.
Asked how people-to-people contacts would get promoted when the PPP delegation had met only the top leadership of the ruling party and the opposition, Mr Fahim argued that leaders elected democratically talked only of people as they had a direct contact with them.
He said that peoples of Pakistan and India wanted to forget the bitterness of the past for the sake of a better future relationship.
When a journalist sought his comments on a statement made by President Musharraf that the schedule for elections would be announced in November next year, he said: “The real issue is whether the elections are held in a transparent way.”
Mr Fahim, who is also chairman of the 16-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, regretted that Gen Musharraf, in spite of being the president and the army chief, was campaigning for the ruling PML and settling differences among its party leaders and nazims.
Jawed Naqvi adds from New Delhi: Meanwhile, talking to reporters in New Delhi, Mr Fahim said a meeting scheduled to be held between Ms Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif in London on May 14 was expected to produce a charter for the restoration of democracy.
“At this meeting, we hope to be able to say to each other: Let bygones be bygones. And we will apologise to the people of Pakistan for our sins of commission and omission,” he said.
Referring to the PPP delegation’s meeting with the Indian prime minister, he said Dr Singh had conveyed good wishes to Ms Bhutto in her endeavours to work for peace.
