Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee (left) gestures during talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad on Saturday.
— AFP photo |
Islamabad, January 13
India today avoided a potentially embarrassing situation by inviting Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and not President Pervez Musharraf for the 14th SAARC summit to be held in Delhi in April.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who arrived here today on a two-day visit, was initially slated to hand over a formal invitation to President Musharraf, but announced on reaching here that he was carrying a letter from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for Shaukat Aziz.
Before Pranab reached here, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri had rebuffed India by publicly declaring that President Musharraf was unlikely to attend the SAARC summit.
Kasuri had told mediapersons yesterday that it would not be appropriate for the President to go to New Delhi without a reciprocal visit from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“The President of Pakistan has already visited India in 2005. It is now the turn of Prime Minister to visit Pakistan,” he had said. It would be more appropriate for the President to visit India after the Prime Minister paid a return visit, he had added.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has a longstanding invitation from Pakistan but has not availed of it for one reason or the other. Islamabad is very keen that his visit materialised at the earliest.
Although diplomats from both sides played down Kasuri’s remarks, India decided to play it safe and revised its earlier decision to invite President Musharraf. It would have been embarrassing for New Delhi if they had handed the invitation to the President and he was to turn it down.
The Indian side, however, denied that there had been a last-minute change in the plan, stating Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has represented India at the last SAARC summit in Dhaka and it was only appropriate that the invitation should go to him.
Given that Islamabad is attaching so much importance to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit, Mukherjee’s 70-minute meeting with President Musharraf and his subsequent discussions with Aziz and Kasuri through the day, are set to pave the way for the Prime Minister’s visit.
As stated by Pranab Mukherjee, his meeting with Musharraf dwelt on all bilateral issues and the settlement of outstanding disputes. Terrorism and Jammu and Kashmir were on the table even as the two leaders looked at ways of moving the relationship forward from this point. Despite the bit of misunderstanding over the invitation for the SAARC summit, the two leaders were happy with the progress made by them on all issues and expressed their determination to give the necessary political impetus to these discussions and carry these forward.
President has made fresh proposals on Kashmir, including demilitarisation, joint control and self-governance, while Manmohan Singh has spoken of a treaty of peace and friendship. For New Delhi, terrorism remains a primary source of concern.
