‘Third and Final’ Bid for Peace With Pakistan
This is the last chance for India and Pakistan to resolve their differences. If not now, then it would be very difficult without Vajpayee. He would be the most flexible Indian Prime Minister for Pakistan.
New York Times
India to Make ‘Third and Final’ Bid for Peace With Pakistan
By AMY WALDMAN
EW DELHI, May 2 — Saying that he was making a last effort at peace, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India announced in Parliament today that India would send a new high commissioner to Pakistan and restore air links on a reciprocal basis between the two countries.
The decision was welcomed in Pakistan.
The announcement breaks a 16-month-long stalemate that began after a Dec. 13, 2001, attack on Parliament here. India laid the blame for the attack on Pakistan, which has backed a 14-year Islamic insurgency in an attempt to wrest control of Indian-administered Kashmir.
India recalled its high commissioner and suspended air, road and rail links, and later deployed hundreds of thousands of extra troops along its border with Pakistan. Western diplomats have said that the two nuclear-armed nations twice went to the brink of war.
“At least in my life this is the last time I will be making an attempt to resolve the Indo-Pak dispute,” an emotional Mr. Vajpayee said today.
Two weeks ago, on a visit to Kashmir, Mr. Vajpayee ended months of hard-line rhetoric by Indian officials and announced he was extending a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan. He reiterated the statement in Parliament, although he insisted that India’s conditions of a halt to anti-Indian terrorism emanating from Pakistani territory had not changed.
On Monday, Pakistan’s prime minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, called Mr. Vajpayee to extend his appreciation for the Indian prime minister’s words. They discussed ways of moving ties forward, including restoring air links.
In making a first move today, Mr. Vajpayee risks the wrath of hard-liners in his own party, which became clear this week. After Pakistani officials announced that Mr. Jamali had informally invited Mr. Vajpayee to Pakistan, leaders from Mr. Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party announced that the invitation was being rejected. India’s Ministry of External Affairs rushed to clarify that no formal invitation had been issued, and thus none rejected.
Twice before, Mr. Vajpayee had reached out to Pakistan, only to be met with what India saw as blatant, even mocking rebuffs. In February 1999 he visited Lahore, only to have Pakistan start a miniwar in the peaks of Kargil a few months later.
He invited the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to a summit meeting, only to have the meeting end in acrimony, followed by the attack on Parliament six months later.
Today Mr. Vajpayee said he was making his “third and final” effort at peace. “Even for me, it is a decisive and conclusive step,” he said, adding, “We are committed to improvement of relations with Pakistan and we are willing to grasp every opportunity to do so.”
This is typically the starting time of the “jehadi season,” as some call the infiltration of militants across mountain passes into India. There have been fears that should militants begin a major attack, as they did with the killing of 24 Hindus in Kashmir in March, India would launch limited air strikes in retaliation.
The United States Deputy Secretary of State, Richard L. Armitage, is visiting Pakistan and India next week in part because this is seen as such a critical period.
But an Indian defense official speaking on background said that there had been “nothing significant” in terms of infiltration since the end of March, when the snows melt and infiltration traditionally begins.
Another Indian official said it was essential that “it’s all the more critical now that there be a let up” — referring to infiltration and militant attacks — “because he’s really staked a lot of things.”
“It’s a very courageous sort of move,” he said of Mr. Vajpayee’s statement today.
In his comments today, Mr. Vajpayee also raised the state of economic relations between the two countries, and it is there that India may be looking for gestures from Pakistan. Pakistan still maintains a so-called “negative list” of Indian items it bars from import, and India has long been seeking most favored nation status.
The Indian decision was greeted in Pakistan.
“It is a positive and good gesture and we appreciate this, as it was required in the region,” the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, told news agencies there. “We believe this will be a good start and we are going to solve all our problems, including the Kashmir issue, when the diplomatic facilities will be available.”
Mr. Musharraf and Mr. Jamali were meeting with senior foreign policy officials this afternoon.
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmud Kasuri said on Pakistan television on Thursday night: “We should go back to pre-Dec. 13, 2001, status vis-à-vis diplomatic relations between the two countries to create a conducive atmosphere for a composite dialogue on all outstanding issues.”
A spokesman for the United States Embassy said the administration welcomed today’s developments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/international/asia/03INDO-CND.html
