I’m not sure much is going to come out of this visit, but give him credit for trying to improve Indo-Pak ties.
Mood swings India way for Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari visit : Pakistan News - India Today
We do not want to fight with any nation… We do not want to compete militarily with other countries," said Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari early Wednesday morning, addressing thousands of people gathered on the occasion of the death anniversary of his father-in-law and the founder of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at the Bhutto family stronghold of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.
The irony would not be lost on those who take a long view of history. In 1971, Bhutto had vowed to “fight for a thousand years” against India. But as Zardari seeks peace vis-Ã -vis the bigger neighbour, there are few who are opposed to keeping the channel of talks open.
While speculation is rife in the Pakistani media about what prompted the President to suddenly decide to make a day-long visit to India, as well as on the possible outcome of his scheduled launch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 8, only a small group of rightwing hardliners is unhappy about it. And even they are not openly critical.
“Pakistan should talk to India at all levels and we should strongly raise all the issues with them,” a Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) official said.
His reasons, though, would hardly amuse the Indian establishment. “We should raise the Kashmir issue with them, we should talk to them about the river water shortage that India is inflicting upon us,” the JuD official said.
“If Zardari strongly raises these issues with them, then visiting India in itself is not something we oppose. But if the visit is meant as a means to conceding ground to India on bilateral trade at the expense of the Kashmir issue, then of course we cannot support it,” he added.
The recently formed Difa-e-Pakistan Council, which the JuD is a part of, has opposed normalisation of trade ties with India. Its graffiti asks “how come Pakistan can befriend India which has killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims” and “how can you do business with someone who is your sworn enemy”.
A Karachi-based Urdu daily, Ummat, wrote on Wednesday that Zardari’s India visit was taking place under the US pressure. “The Indians were not ready to take the visit seriously and they wanted it to remain a personal one, as was originally announced, but then the Americans got involved and they asked the them to invite Zardari for a luncheon meeting with PM Manmohan Singh,” the newspaper reported.
Barring such dissenters, the general mood in Pakistan is positive. Analyst Najam Sethi, in his talk show on Tuesday, went to the extent of claiming that a “breakthrough has already been achieved, though it was being kept a secret for the fear of opposition from rightwing groups and the military establishment”.
According to Sethi, Zardari could make major announcements on trade concessions to India and would urge it to reciprocate by, for instance, agreeing to the withdrawal of the two armies from the Siachen glacier. “Zardari will also invite Singh to visit Pakistan in the next six months and during that visit announce the withdrawal from Siachen,” Sethi said.
A columnist in the Islamabadbased English language daily Pakistan Observer called the visit a “great initiative”. “(Zardari) has played a marvellous stroke and should return with something in his pocket,” he noted, adding that the lunch meeting could be “the harbinger of bettering the ties and the peace in region”.
The enthusiasm is, however, tempered by a cautionary note. Talat Masood, an Islamabadbased analyst who is also a former army general, warned that expecting the visit to achieve anything substantial would be asking for too much. “Remember, this started as a personal visit. Only as an after-thought has it been turned into an official one,” he said. “Expect the two sides to reiterate their commitment to peace, cooperation and harmony, but don’t expect them to announce a breakthrough on any outstanding issue.”
“The nature of the bilateral problems is such that high-level political visits can’t resolve them over a luncheon meeting. There is a lot of history and lot of technicalities, which is where the bureaucrats become involved. Which means every political initiative for peace and normalisation of ties gets bogged down in technicalities,” Masood explained.
In an editorial on Tuesday, Dawn expressed similar views. “Highlevel contacts between Pakistani and Indian leaders over the last few years have remained just that and no more… barring exchange of platitudes, nothing came of them,” the newspaper said. “To expect that the luncheon get-together will set the ball rolling and nudge the two foreign offices into quickening the pace of the normalisation process is to be naïve.”
Dawn also reported on Wednesday that Zardari could be tested during his visit on whether or not he acts against JuD chief Hafiz Saeed, who has just attracted a US $10 million bounty on his head.
“He (Zardari) is coming on a private visit and it might not be the best occasion to raise this issue. But we will raise it at every other available platform,” the report quoted P. Chidambaram as saying.
An aide to Zardari agreed that the visit was originally meant to be strictly personal. “The President wanted to visit the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti to thank the Sufi saint for granting his prayers on his health,” the aide said. “But when we talked to the Indians about it, we got the invitation for the official lunch and meeting with PM Manmohan Singh.”
The aide said the mood among Zardari’s staff and the government was upbeat, “though we are keeping the expectation (of a breakthrough) low”. “Let’s hope for the best, but let’s also keep it in mind that this visit was never meant to achieve something great,” he said.
Zardari = Kuggi