BJP terms Aziz visit a failure

Published November 26, 2004

NEW DELHI, Nov 25: India's main opposition Bharartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday slammed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Mr Shaukat Aziz, saying they had failed to produce any result.

"Pakistan Prime Minister's recent visit to India has failed to produce any result," the BJP's National Executive Council, meeting in Ranchi, said in a resolution on the party's foreign policy.

"No progress has been made even on such Confidence Building Measure as the Srinagar-Mujaffarabad bus service. (Mr Aziz) also failed to officially convey to India President Musharraf's publicly announced proposal on Jammu and Kashmir.

"The BJP National Executive completely rejects the proposals of President Musharraf on Jammu and Kashmir, which is and will always remain an integral part of India," the resolution said.

It said that among the many achievements of the Vajpayee government's foreign policy, the most notable were the initiatives to resolve the outstanding issues with China and Pakistan, the establishment of a healthy and fruitful relationship with the USA, the EU, Russia, Japan, ASEAN and other countries.

"It initiated determined steps to improve and intensify its relationship with its neighbours. The peace initiative with Pakistan, was in particular, of historic significance as was the joint press statement issued after Prime Minister Vajpayee's meeting with President Musharraf in Islambad on January 6, 2004.

"It is remarkable because for the first time, in a bilateral document, Pakistan agreed to eschew 'violence', 'conflict' and 'terrorism'. It agreed to resolve all issues bilaterally between the two countries," the resolution said.

The BJP said all those premises had now been negated, "because of the manner in which the dialogue process has been conducted by the present government of India". It alleged that it was because of the "inept handling of this government that state-sponsored, cross-border terrorism from Pakistan" had become almost a non-issue.

"Infiltration continues unabated and the infrastructure of terrorism remains intact in Pakistan and POK. The impunity with which acts of terrorism continue to be committed, as was amply demonstrated by the terrorist incident, which took place on the day the prime minister himself visited Srinagar is deeply worrisome," the BJP resolution said.

The government has also failed to carry forward the initiative of the Vajpayee government to engage all groups in J and K including the Hurriyat in a dialogue, it said. "It is ridiculous that the Hurriyat leaders travel to New Delhi to meet the prime minister of the Pakistan while at the same time they refuse to meet the prime minister or the home minister of India."

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