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Musharraf, Vajpayee May Meet Next Month
Another meeting between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is likely to take place in the second week of next month in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly.
Several countries particularly the United States have forcefully impressed upon both the sides for the Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting to de-escalate tension that intensified after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.
A diplomatic source told The News that top foreign leaders, who have been rushing to Pakistan with some of them also visiting India in the same trip, have urged President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee to resume the dialogue at the highest level in order to resolve the longstanding problems through talks. Musharraf, an official said, has told every foreign leader who met him in the recent days that he is all for resumption of a meaningful dialogue that is not just confined to mere discussions.
"Pakistan and India should resume dialogue by reviving the format agreed upon during the Agra summit," the President said on Sunday. "India is exercising persistent hostility against Pakistan so as to seek hegemony and role of a regional power. The Kashmir issue must be resolved in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people, as laid down in the UN resolutions." The official said that Pakistan was willing for resumption of dialogue despite the fact that India was engaged in vociferous propaganda against it out of frustration in its bid to include Pakistan in one or the other among the countries against whom the ongoing terrorist campaign was directed.
The most powerful urging to Pakistan and India for reduction of tension has come from the United States that wants to keep its attention focussed on the military campaign against Afghanistan and does not want any other issue, how serious it may be, to come on the centre stage of the world. He said that India's charges against Pakistan on account of militancy in the occupied Kashmir were also amply reflective of its disappointment over Pakistan's becoming the frontline state in the international war against terrorism.
The official said that President Musharraf had phoned Prime Minister Vajpayee in the wake of bloody terrorist attack on the legislative assembly of the occupied Kashmir to express his anguish over the incident and signal a message that Pakistan condemns such activity and wants to re-start the dialogue to solve the Kashmir dispute and all other outstanding issues between the two countries.
The first high-profile Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting held in Agra on intense international prodding some time back had turned out to be a fiasco because of the Indian obstinacy to solve the Kashmir issue according to the aspirations of the Kashmiris. This time too, no high hopes are being attached to the likely summit in New York. On many occasions, the top leaders of the two countries had been holding such meetings in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. It was during such a summit in 1998 that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Vajpayee had agreed for the Indian Premier's famous bus diplomacy culminating in the signing of the Lahore Declaration.
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