New Delhi, May 25
In his letter to the Pakistan Chief Executive, Gen Pervez Musharraf, delivered in Islamabad today, the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, invited the Pakistan ruler to walk together the high road for “building trust and confidence” for the welfare of “our peoples”.
Pakistan said it would reply by next week to Mr Vajpayee’s invitation to Gen Pervez Musharraf for talks. “We will not waste time. We will respond to it by sometime next week,” Pakistan’s High Commissioner in India Ashraf Jehangir Qazi said.
In a carefully worded letter for renewing the composite dialogue, Mr Vajpayee said “for the welfare of our peoples, there is no other recourse but a pursuit of the path of reconciliation, of engaging in productive dialogue and by building trust and confidence”.
Stating that “our common enemy is poverty”, the Prime Minister reminded General Musharraf that he had “visited Lahore in February 1999, with the objective of beginning a new chapter in our bilateral relations” and reiterated his words recorded at Minar-e-Pakistan that “a stable, secure and prosperous Pakistan is in India’s interests”.
Emphasising that his words at Minar-e-Pakistan continued to remain India’s “conviction”, Mr Vajpayee said: “We have to pick up the threads” of Lahore “again, including renewing the composite dialogue, so that we can put in place a stable structure of cooperation and address all outstanding issues, including Jammu & Kashmir”.
The Prime Minister’s initiative on Wednesday night was welcomed by Islamabad with Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar saying the country would respond as soon as Mr Vajpayee’s formal invitation letter came.
The Prime Minister’s letter, which was handed over to Pakistan Foreign Secretary , Inamul Haq by India’s acting High Commissioner Sudhir Vyas, said: “India has, through dialogue, consistently endeavoured to build a relationship of durable peace, stability and cooperative friendship with Pakistan”.
“Our common enemy is poverty. For the welfare of our two peoples, there is no other recourse but a pursuit of the path of reconciliation, of engaging in productive dialogue and by building trust and confidence. I invite you to walk this high road with us”, Mr Vajpayee said extending an invitation to Begum Musharraf and General Musharraf to visit India at a convenient date.
Dates for the visit would be worked out through diplomatic channels, a spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs said here.
India has proposed that the bilateral talks would focus on the eight-point composite agenda agreed to between the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries in Islamabad on June 23, 1997.
The Prime Minister’s invitation to General Musharraf, in pursuance to the Lahore Declaration and the Simla Agreement, could lead to the first-ever summit-level meeting since Mr Vajpayee’s historic bus journey to Lahore on February 20, 1999, months before the Kargil conflict.
