JEDDAH, 8 May 2003 — Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s move to improve ties with Pakistan has surprised the United States, according to a veteran Indian journalist and parliamentarian.
“Americans were surprised, pleasantly though, on seeing Vajpayee extend the hand of friendship to Pakistan,” Kuldip Nayar, a widely syndicated columnist, former diplomat and member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament), told reporters here yesterday.
“My meeting with senior American diplomats in New Delhi shows they were really taken by surprise. When I asked them whether the premier had been pressured by the US to make the gesture, one of them remarked, ‘It’s entirely the prime minister’s move. We don’t want to take credit for something we have not done.’ So I was convinced the US had no hand in Vajpayee’s move which is entirely his own initiative,” said Nayar, a former Indian high commissioner to Britain.
The latest Indian move and Pakistan’s “positive response to it shows people from both countries were behind them and pressurizing them to restore peace. People of both countries are fatigued and fed-up with the tensions building between them... they long for peace and friendship,” said Nayar who visited Pakistan by road via the Wagah Border three months ago.
He said Vajpayee’s dissatisfaction with Pakistan’s response to his move was based on his expectation that Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali would address India’s concerns on the issue of cross-border terrorism.
Asked whether he was hopeful of a lasting peace between the two countries, Nayar said: “Vajpayee wants something positive to happen within the remaining 15 months of his premiership. The pace will be slow but hopefully conclusive this time,” he said, adding that a bilateral summit might take time.
About the prospects of a solution to the core issue of Kashmir, Nayar said: “Both countries are rallying around the acceptance of Line of Control (LOC) as the border. This was what even Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan, former president and premier of Azad Kashmir, said in London. However, trade, air links, road transport and people-to-people relations will have to be developed first.”
“I propose to lead a delegation of parliamentarians to Pakistan next month,” Nayar said.
Nayar said he held a meeting with Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal on Tuesday and discussed with him his vision of the South Asian region, from Afghanistan to Myanmar, becoming one common market of sovereign countries.
Nayar, who is here for the second time since the late 1970s, was invited by the Jeddah-based Urdu Academy for the Maulana Azad Education Day function being held at Al-Salam Holiday Inn Hotel this evening.
Barrister Sardar Ali Khan, retired judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and former chairman of India’s Minorities Commission, is the other invitee at the function, dedicated to the memory of India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
