ISLAMABAD, 3 January 2003 — India signaled yesterday it was ready to set aside security concerns and import natural gas through Pakistan if relations improved between neighbors.
Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha told a regional business conference that Pakistan could be a vital bridge between Central Asia, the Gulf and energy-hungry India.
“If Pakistan can find within itself the strength and wisdom to change its current approach toward India, there are immense benefits that it can derive as a transit route for the movement of energy, goods and people,” Sinha said in a speech to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
India has been lukewarm to proposals of receiving gas via Pakistan and has opted for costlier liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports because it fears such a pipeline could be held hostage to its long running tensions with Pakistan.
But yesterday as the long-time foes agreed to set up a South Asia free trade area, Sinha said only closer economic integration could help end decades of mistrust.
“They can help resolve our differences in a way that old hostility or new distrust never can.”
Sinha said he had suggested to his fellow foreign ministers from the seven-nation SAARC grouping that the target for an ambitious South Asian economic union should be advanced to 2015 from 2020, and they had agreed to examine the idea.
A pipeline across Pakistan is the cheapest option to import gas into India, which produces only 65 million cubic meters or 2.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, enough to meet barely half the domestic demand.
There are two main routes under consideration by the countries of the region, one from Iran across Pakistan to India and the other from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
India is also talking to Iran to buy LNG instead of piped natural gas as it is a safer option despite the higher cost involved in cooling the gas to liquefy it, transporting it in special vessels, and converting it into gas.
Pakistan Is Ready to Meet India: Kasuri
Pakistan is ready for bilateral meetings with rival India at this weekend’s regional summit, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said yesterday.
“The ball is in India’s court,” Kasuri told reporters after attending a meeting of the foreign ministers of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, which with Pakistan make up the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
“It takes two to tango. You require a peace partner. We can’t do it by ourselves.”
The 12th SAARC summit opening tomorrow presents the first chance for Indian and Pakistani leaders to come face to face since nearly going to war in 2002 after a deadly attack on India’s Parliament.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is due to land in the capital Islamabad today for his first visit to Pakistan since his famous bus journey across the border in 1999.
He will have a chance to meet Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf tomorrow night when Musharraf hosts a banquet for all visiting SAARC heads of state.
So far Vajpayee has not formally sought a separate meeting with Musharraf, as the five other visiting heads of state have done in accordance with SAARC summit traditions.
If the two do meet, formal discussions are not expected.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shashank repeated yesterday that “no meetings have been fixed.”
Earlier, the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan greeted each other with a warm embrace yesterday.
Yashwant Sinha and Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri posed for the cameras smiling and with an arm around each other’s backs before the meeting, which observers hope will provide an opportunity for them to boost a fragile peace process.
Speaking to reporters with Kasuri at his shoulder, Sinha did not rule out the possibility of ice-breaking one-on-one talks between Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Zafarullah Khan Jamali or President Pervez Musharraf on the summit sidelines.
“We have said that it has not been decided yet,” he told them just before the meeting. “Let the prime minister come tomorrow.”
Sinha said the leaders would in any case be meeting at the summit. “They will be meeting socially,” he said.
The Indian foreign minister was in cheerful and confident mood. Asked how he felt, he replied: “What can you tell from our laughter? We are smiling. What can you tell from that?” The ministers and their counterparts took their places around a series of tables arranged in a horseshoe-shape.
Discussion of bilateral issues at the SAARC summit is forbidden by the organization’s charter, but Musharraf and Vajpayee may use the occasion to advance the shaky process of reconciliation.
A breakthrough in their dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir is seen as unlikely, but the very fact that Vajpayee is visiting Pakistan for the summit is seen as a sign of progress.
At best, diplomats say, there is a chance the two sides might quietly agree to open a lower-level dialogue this year between Foreign Ministry bureaucrats.
The leaders are expected to ink a South Asian Free Trade Agreement at their summit, which in itself is seen as a sign of reconciliation between New Delhi and Islamabad.
The deal will also underline the potential benefits to the region if India and Pakistan can resolve five decades of hostility over Kashmir.
Islamabad’s international airport will be closed for most of today and early tomorrow to boost security for arriving leaders, with at least nine flights canceled and eight rerouted.
