PARIS, Aug 1: French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, in office only 100 days, has decided to emphasize France’s special relations with Pakistan and India by choosing to visit Islamabad and New Delhi during his first official tour of Asia.
Pakistan and India were selected as the first Asian destinations of the newly-named foreign minister, notes Quai d’Orsay spokesman Philippe Rivasseau, “because they are countries with which we’ve had long relations of confidence.”
In going to Delhi on Friday (Aug 2) and Islamabad on Saturday (Aug 3), Mr de Villepin decided to pay special honour to two countries with which France plans to significantly step up its bilateral relations.
“France definitely wants to let both countries know that they have an important role to play in France’s future, and through France, in that of the European Union too,” notes another Foreign Ministry source.
In each country, notes Mr Rivasseau, “Mr de Villepin will engage in talks with the leading officials, including Gen Musharraf in Pakistan,” one of the rare times where a foreign minister is invited to meet with a country’s head of state.
“Through these and other such meetings,” adds Mr Rivasseau, “the French foreign minister will be able to review all the various areas in which France and Pakistan have cooperated, and which are at the centre of their long-lasting special relations.”
The two countries will discuss notably the elaboration of a defence accord, this in the wake of the terrorist attack last May 8 in Karachi which saw eleven French naval employees lose their lives.
In spite of calls made recently by a major French trade union and a leading member of the defence commission of the French National Assembly, France is understood to want to not only continue its defence cooperation with Pakistan — which is at present limited to a 1994 accord under which construction of three Agosta class submarines were taken in hand — but also increase its level, to the point where France would supply Pakistan with further military hardware, perhaps some of the same furtive frigates that France is currently in the process of supplying to Saudi Arabia.
French defence ministry sources say that discussion of the DCN contract for construction of the Agost-90B submarines will be “high on the agenda” of the talks between Mr de Villepin and the Pakistani authorities.
Mr de Villepin is also expected to discuss the inquiry into the May 8 attack on the French defence employees, an inquest that was personally requested back on May 9 by French defence minister Madam Michele Alliot-Marie, then in Pakistan to recover the corpses of the slain French nationals.
“Since then,” notes Mr Rivasseau, “we’ve had the chance to manifest our concern to Pakistani authorities on two occasions. The first time, to ask that the inquest be allowed to progress at a faster pace, this to identify, arrest and try the authors of this dramatic incident which cost the lives of eleven of our compatriots. The second occasion, more recently, to insist that we be associated with the Pakistani investigation and be kept informed as to the progress they make. For the moment, the inquest continues and we are in close touch with the appropriate Pakistani authorities.”
In India, Mr de Villepin is to meet Prime Minister Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister Advani, Foreign Minister Sinha and Defence Minister Fernandes.
France has decided to transfer its consular services to the British consulate general in Karachi, this as a result of the decision to shut down its own consulate in Karachi for security reasons.