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| Islamabad's important message to New Delhi | | India is asked to reactivate peace process | |
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, AUG. 21: In a significant turn of events, Islamabad has taken the initative to egg New Delhi on to move forward to resume the stalled dialogue between thew two countries. Pakistan has sent a message to the Indian leadership, asking them to reactivate the peace process between the two countries and manage the tangle through diplomatic channels instead of consigning irritants to media glare for maligning the other side.
A report from Islamabad on Monday evening said: “Pakistan is willing to come to the table of comprehensive dialogue provided India realises the mistake of stalling the peace process and show sincerity of purpose". In fact, this message is carried to New Delhi by Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Aziz Ahmad Khan, who had a detailed meeting with President Pervez Musharraf at his Rawalpindi camp office on Saturday before departing for New Delhi via Lahore.
The envoy was reported to have submitted a detailed report about the hardening attitude in New Delhi in the wake of the Mumbai rail blasts. India cancelled the scheduled meeting of Foreign Secretaries of the two countries and the ongoing composite dialogue at senior official level.
Aziz Ahmed Khanafter meeting Gen. Parvez Musharaf, said in Islamabad that envoys were supposed to do the job of communication. He did not elaborate. “The understanding of the situation on the part of the President is remarkable,” he said. Earlier, the High Commissioner had detailed discussions with Foreign Secretary, Riaz Mohammad Khan, in Islamabad. He also met Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, towards the end of last week.
The Pak High Commision er was reported to have expressed the view that relations between India and Pakistan were not worsening; rather, they were improving. When his attention was drawn to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s reported unwillingness to meet President Musharraf in Havana next month on the sidelines of the Non-Align Movement (NAM) summit, Khan said that no such statement of the Indian Premier appeared in any of the Indian newspapers. He said that he was not aware of Manmohan Singh’s schedule for the NAM summit, but hinted that the Indian Prime Minister would like to avail himself of the opportunity to meet world leaders.
Meanwhile India’s Deputy High Commissioner to Islamabad, A.T.C. Raghavan, is in New Delhi for consultations. He left Islamabad the day Khan departed New Delhi for Islamabad last week. He has been holding meetings with higher- ups in the South Block of the Indian capital since then.
Diplomatic sources believe that it appears that in the absence of active backchannel contacts, front channels of diplomacy are being actively engaged to bring down the level of tension between the two capitals.
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