New Delhi, July 22
Breaking his silence for the first time since the Agra summit, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today squarely blamed the Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf for “inflexibile and hard stance” on Kashmir resulting in the breakdown of talks.

“The talks broke down because of Pakistan’s adamant attitude against making any reference to cross-border terrorism in the draft document, which they repeatedly termed as a freedom struggle,” Mr Vajpayee told newspersons at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Mr Vajpayee observed that India encountered a serious roadblock in moving forward because of General Musharraf’s insistence of centralising the Kashmir issue without taking into account the problem of cross-border terrorism.

Commenting on the collapse of the resumed Indo-Pak dialogue after the Kargil conflict in 1999, Mr Vajpayee maintained “no draft came to us” in respect of the draft statement which failed to materialise because of Pakistan’s constant chant that without resolving the Kashmir problem, Indo-Pak relations cannot move forward.

The Prime Minister said there was an agreement between the two sides on “some points”, but it was “wrong” to suggest that the two sides had almost agreed on signing the documents.

Ruling out any third party mediation in the Indo-Pak affairs, Mr Vajpayee said he had at all times kept his Cabinet colleagues informed about the one-to-one discussions with General Musharraf.

In this context he explained that Union External Affairs and Defence Minister Jaswant Singh had been given a specific brief of working on the joint statement.

“Senior members of the Cabinet were interacting constantly on various aspects of the one-to-one talks and if there was any failing, it was on my part,” Mr Vajpayee said acknowledging complete responsibility for the failure of the Indo-Pak summit at Agra.

The Prime Minister did not see any prospects of his visiting Pakistan in the immediate future. “I have accepted General Musharraf’s invitation to visit Pakistan but a decision on this will be taken after considering all aspects and having due consultations in the Cabinet.”