An Indian opposition leader told Gulf News after he held extraordinarily candid talks with Pakistan's president that "President Pervez Musharraf said he had risked being seen to appease the U.S., but could not afford to risk being seen as appeasing India."
Subramanian Swamy, president of the Janata Party and the first back channel negotiator since the Indian government hardened its "no talks" line to start informal talks with Pakistan, said in Dubai that he has won two key promises from Pakistan's president.
One, to take another look at trade issues, particularly according most favoured nation status to arch rival India.
And more importantly, Musharraf was willing to take steps to address India's concerns on cross-border terrorism by "stepping up the vigil on the Line of control (LoC)".
"But in return Musharraf wants to see reciprocal gestures from India," said Swamy, who is on his way back to Chennai, India, after meeting Musharraf on Tuesday.
The opposition leader said the president had suggested India send its high commissioner back to Islamabad as an immediate first step before restoration of rail, road and air links, that were snapped after an attack on India's parliament in December 2001, which India blames on Pakistan backed terrorists.
He cautioned, however, that he saw little likelihood of peace, with the BJP bent on "demonising" Pakistan now that it had gone into election mode.
Swamy, who has no ties to either the ruling Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led Bharatiya Janata Party or the opposition Congress party, travelled to Islamabad on the invitation of Musharraf to find ways to break the logjam in Indo-Pak relations since the breakdown of talks at the Agra summit in 2001.
"Musharraf said that while the Pakistani leader believed he had taken an enormous risk in backing the U.S. against the Taliban in the 'war against terror', his decision to take on the jihadis and stop the infiltration across the Line of Control was equally risky," Swamy said, adding that Pakistan's president had pointed out that India had neither appreciated the risks he had taken nor reciprocated.
Indian ministers had instead, only stepped up the rhetoric, Musharraf told Swamy, during a meeting attended by senior foreign ministry officials including Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar.
Musharraf criticised Indian Defence Minister George Ferna-ndes in particular for threatening in a BBC interview to "wipe Pakistan off the face of the map if Pakistan nuked India".
Swamy says Musharraf indicated he was keen to bring tensions down but pleaded Pakistan's inability to stop infilitration completely, saying it was virtually impossible to seal the border.
Musharraf cited the terrain and the existence of "freelance terrorists", mainly Chechens and Afghans trained by the U.S. during the fight against the Soviets as the main problem.
Swamy said, however, that Musharraf was willing to allow the Russians, who had first raised the issue of some 75 camps operating in Pakistani part of Kashmir, to visit and assess, first hand, the presence of such camps.
In an hour-long meeting, the president also reiterated to Swamy his willingness to assuage Indian concerns over trade.
Khokhar, in a separate meeting with Swamy on Monday, said the commerce ministry was working on a draft agreement on according India MFN status.
"That will be a huge concession," Swamy said, adding that Musharraf had assured him that apart from new dates being proposed for a meeting of heads of state of the South Asian Association of Regional Co-operation (Saarc), Pakistan was also working to find ways to back a South Asia preferential trade agreement (Sapta) and the South Asia free trade agreement (Safta). Both agreements have lain dormant over simmering differences between the two main powers in the subcontinent.
Swamy also said Pakistan had already agreed to the release of about 200 Indian fishermen and 22 Sikhs held in jails but as for the 800 others, they would have to face due process.
Gulf News 2003
