news details |
|
|
| Musharraf desperate for good relations with India | | Pakistan's 'military-mullah alliance' under attack | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, NOV. 6: Pakistan's top legal expert, Farooq Hassan, has, in a signifcant move, launched a blistering attack on the 'militatary-mullah alliance' in his country. He has warned that there cannot be a fundamental rapprochement between Pakistan and India, with the Pakistani military continuing to call the shots.
In a media interview, Farooq Hassan has been quoted as saying: "Unless there is a genuine metamorphosis of the military rule towards civilian rule in Pakistan, I am not optimistic about durable peace in the region". A senior advocate at Pakistan's Supreme Court who has served as adviser to former Prime Ministers, Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto, Moin Qureshi and Muhammad Khan Junejo, Hassan is an ardent advocate of democracy and has spoken out against the 'military-mullah alliance' in his country.
Commenting on the ongoing dialogue process between Pakistan and India, Farooq Hassan has stated that Gen. Parvez Musharraf is "desperate to have good relations with India because he wants the stability of his regime and not because he is interested in peace". Hassan's observation: "India and Pakistan are proceeding in a direction which cannot be called friendly"
Hassan was asked what he thought of New Delhi's contention that Islamabad was behind terorist incidents in India. His reported reply: "India rightly feels aggrieved by actions and tragedies emanating from Pakistan. Pakistan, on the other hand, articulates the needs of the regime in power and doesn't contemplate a wider visionary goal of peace in the region". India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, although he is not mollycoddling the military regime in Pakistan, is kinder to President Musharraf than his predecessor, Atal Behari Vajpayee was, said Hassan, an admirer of Vajpayee's foreign policy and 'statesman-like skills'.
Hassan's equally significant observation: If Pakistan is really interested in a breakthrough in its relations with India, Pakistan should begin by granting India the most favoured nation (MFN) status. Hassan said: "The number one priority for Pakistan should be to give India the MFN status. This should help the consumer. This could be a real breakthrough". Hassan was also quoted as saying: "Pakistan is the laboratory of what is called terrorism and extremism in the West. Pakistan is so desperately poor and is in grave danger of disintegrating".
In this conection, Farooq Hassan quoted a report by the Rand Corporation which says that Pakistan will be reduced to just Punjab in 2015. He said: "There is a real danger that the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Sindh, Balochistan and the Northern Areas can secede from Pakistan".
Farooq Hassan, a scholar and constitutional expert who has taught at Harvard and Oxford, said: "India should use its vast influence in the region to ensure that military governments do not survive and thrive in the region". He sought to add a new leaf to the history by saying: "Democracy came to the world not through the US and the UK, but from India. That is the real gift of India". He hoped for a resurgence of genuine democracy in Pakistan.
===================
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
