'Pakistan wants peace with India,' says PM
Pakistan’s prime minister, in New Delhi for a rare meeting with his Indian counterpart amid an often-stumbling peace process, insisted today ”Pakistan wants peace with India”.
Shaukat Aziz also played down recent tough talk by both sides, a flare-up that occurred after Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, raised the possibility of major changes in the way Kashmir – the disputed Himalayan region at the root of decades of Indo-Pakistan distrust – is governed.
Musharraf’s comments set off a back-and-forth of increasingly belligerent comments across the border.
Aziz, though, said no lasting damage had been done.
“The discussions and the options listed by the president of Pakistan were merely on the basis of discussions within Pakistan,” he said. “No proposals were ever presented and no reaction was expected from India.”
He said that he and Singh had discussed the peace process and “the core issue” – their territorial dispute over Kashmir.
“We believe this is an issue we all need to address, and progress on other issues will be made in tandem with progress” over Kashmir, he said after meeting with Singh at a former princely palace.
“The dialogue process will continue. Pakistan wants peace with India,” he said.
While Indian officials had repeatedly warned ahead of the meetings that they did not expect any diplomatic breakthroughs, both countries hoped it would extend the goodwill gained since January as they have eased visa restrictions, resumed diplomatic contacts, and relaunched air and rail links.
Along with the peace process, the two prime ministers – both respected economists – also focused on trade and business issues.
Aziz revived an eight-year-old proposal to build a pipeline through Pakistan to link India with Iran’s massive gas fields.
But India’s energy minister Mani Shankar Aiyer remained non-committal on the plan, insisting it be linked to overall progress in trade and economic ties.
The fragile peace process has seen difficulties in recent days.
During a visit to the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir last week, Singh said India would not redraw its international borders.
That statement was seen as a rebuttal of Musharraf’s suggestion that some areas of Kashmir could be made independent, placed under joint Indian-Pakistani control, or put under the administration of the United Nations.
Musharraf then accused the Indians of inflexibility, causing an unexpected souring of dialogue.
