PARIS, 4 July 2003 — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday said his nation was not ready to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, but it remains something the nation should consider.
“This is not in the cards yet,” he told reporters. “All I have said is... Pakistan needs to reconsider its focus or its relationship with Israel. The Pakistani nation has to decide our future relationship with Israel.”
Musharraf on Sunday urged his countrymen to consider recognizing Israel, a position strongly opposed by religious hard-liners.
Musharraf made his comments following a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris, where he began a visit Wednesday on the final leg of his European and North American tour.
The two leaders also discussed Pakistan’s tense relationship with India, terrorism, Iraq, and bilateral relations, Musharraf said. Pakistan’s relations with the West have improved since Musharraf allied his country with the US-led war against terrorism in neighboring Afghanistan — a move that has enraged Islamic parties at home.
Yesterday the president insisted his country was on the path to democratization, expressing confidence that its full membership in the 54-nation Commonwealth could soon be restored. “Actually, democracy has never been so strong” in Pakistan, Musharraf told reporters at a breakfast meeting before attending a conference organized by French business leaders on investment in his country.
The Pakistani leader said he believed that Pakistan could soon be invited to participate as a full member of the Commonwealth, telling journalists: “I am very hopeful after my discussions with (British) Prime Minister Tony Blair.” In May, Commonwealth foreign ministers welcomed democratic progress in Pakistan but failed to lift its suspension, saying it would be reviewed at their next meeting in September in New York.
The suspension, implemented after Musharraf took power in a 1999 military coup, applies to the Commonwealth’s top-level ministerial councils. Pakistan has not been expelled from the group of former British colonies as a whole.
Musharraf also highlighted Pakistan’s contributions to the global fight against terrorism and its efforts to stamp out corruption, saying none of his Cabinet members had been implicated in any wrongdoing since he took office.
Pakistani authorities have thus far arrested 480 suspected Al-Qaeda operatives and nine members of Afghanistan’s former Taleban regime, he said.
Musharraf added that the army continued to search for fugitive Al-Qaeda members in lawless tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border, claiming a security “vacuum” existed on the Afghan side.
He sought to woo French business leaders here, touting his country’s tame inflation, its anti-corruption efforts and its anti-terrorism commitment.
Musharraf said Pakistan offered investors “tremendous opportunities for a win-win situation.”
He said the Pakistani economy, which was in dire straits three years ago, is now on the point of a robust step forward. Gross domestic product in fiscal year 2002 rose 5.1 percent while the budget deficit was held to 4.5 percent of output and inflation was limited to 3.3 percent.
The Karachi exchange last year was the world’s best performing stock market, posting a gain of 112 percent. So far in 2003 the exchange is up 16 percent.
