Berlin, May 29
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today sharply attacked western nations for adopting double standards in measuring terrorism even as he hoped that his fresh peace initiative would inspire Islamabad to stop cross-border terrorism and dismantle terrorists infrastructure.

“India has suffered both from terrorism and the consequences of double standards applied by the West to deal with terrorism in various places,” he said at his meeting with German parliamentarians here.

Underlining the importance of Germany and acting on its understanding of India’s global presence, Mr Vajpayee hoped that his fresh political initiative of extending a hand of friendship to Pakistan will “inspire action to end cross-border terrorism and dismantle the infrastructure to support it.”

Even as India encouraged its friends and partners “to bring to bear their influence to make this happen,” Mr Vajpayee emphasised that New Delhi continued to deal with the specific problem of cross-border terrorism. At the same time, he was keeping his fingers crossed that his renewed peace efforts would lead to a “process leading to peace, friendship and cooperation between our two countries.”

Addressing German parliamentarians here last night, Mr Vajpayee warned that democratic societies seeking peace, protecting freedom, permitting dissent and valuing consensus had become the main targets of international terrorism. “The global reach of terrorism requires a global and comprehensive effort to counter it.”

As partners in the international coalition against terrorism, India and Germany should recognise that “success against terrorism will depend on how well we have learnt this lesson.”

He said the second aspect was that “we should not and cannot and should not negotiate with terrorism.” Mr Vajpayee drew pointed attention to recent global developments and said it had become imperative to evolve a cooperative multi-polar world order which would promote the ethic of pluralism and consensus by protecting the legitimate interests and aspirations of its constituent elements.

In this context he welcomed the unanimous agreement in the United Nations of moving forward in Iraq. Recent events had again underlined that the United Nations and its organisations needed to be made more reflective of modern political realities.

The Prime Minister said India had proved that democracy based on universal adult franchise could succeed or survive in a poor country with high illiteracy where most people had never voted before. “We have regularly changed governments through a peaceful, non-violent expression of popular will. As I look around at the functioning of real and sham democracies around the world, I sometimes feel that the enormity of India’s achievements in this direction is not appreciated.”