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NEW DELHI: According to all available accounts, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was asked by a reporter at a media interaction aboard his plane on Sunday to list five things he would like to achieve with Pakistan.
His reply was laced with unusual humour. “Well, I think five is too much,” Dr Singh chortled on his way back from Kazakhstan. “If I can succeed in normalising relations between India and Pakistan as they should prevail between two normal states, I would consider my job well done.”
The rest of the press interaction was dedicated to his talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao during the BRICS summit last week, which he said were good.
Domestic volatility over corruption was also discussed. Yet, Dr Singh’s chance comment on ties with Pakistan seems to have converged with similar views expressed by key players across the borders.
Federal Indian minister and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah said in Srinagar on Sunday that the resolution of the Kashmir issue was to improve ties between India and Pakistan.
“Talks between India and Pakistan will resolve Kashmir issue,” Mr Abdullah told reporters during the inauguration of a hotel in Srinagar.
He said relations between New Delhi and Islamabad were strained. “Kashmir issue has to be resolved for improving the relations between them.”
In a dispatch from Islamabad, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Pakistan’s former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf as saying he feels Dr Singh is a “nice man” for Pakistan.
Musharraf, who met Dr Singh a number of times, including during his visit to New Delhi in 2005, said he liked the Indian prime minister. “He (Singh) is a nice man for Pakistan,” Musharraf was quoted as telling DawnNews channel in Dubai.
Kashmir’s Hurriyat Conference chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, however, claimed that New Delhi was not keen to resolve the Kashmir issue and it wanted to maintain status quo.
“Kashmir needs to be resolved through tripartite talks among India, Pakistan and Kashmiris. But unfortunately, New Delhi wants to maintain its policy of status quo,” Mirwaiz said addressing a meeting of his Awami Action Committee (AAC) in Srinagar on Sunday.
Indian officials say Dr Singh, who has accepted an invitation by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to visit Pakistan is looking for the right occasion to make the important visit. “There is a lot of homework to do,” said one senior official.
Officials say the meeting between the leaders at Mohali on March 30 on the sidelines of the cricket World Cup semifinal “has given a new direction”.
WikiLeaks cables have quoted US officials as saying that the Indian prime minister was hampered by considerable resistance from the political opposition and from his own bureaucracy to improve ties with Islamabad.
Meanwhile, The Pioneer reported on Saturday that a Pakistani judicial commission was all set to arrive in India next month in connection with
Mumbai attack trial there. It said the federal government had therefore requested the Bombay High Court to ensure the availability of the judge who conducted the trial of 26/11 case during the period of the visiting panel.
The Pioneer, which is close to rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party, said India’s Home Ministry had written to the Registrar of the Bombay High Court that Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate R. V. Sawant Waghule should be available for questioning by the Pakistani Judicial Commission which would arrive in India by May 15.
“As part of the judicial process of 26/11 case in Pakistan, the commission wants to visit India to take statements of Waghule, Investigating Officer Ramesh Mahale, who recorded Mumbai attack convict Ajmal Kasab’s statement, and the doctor who carried out the post-mortem of the terrorists.”
The Pakistani Commission wants to interview the key witnesses in furtherance of the trial of seven Pakistani suspects, currently in a jail in that country, in 26/11 Mumbai attacks case.
