New Delhi
20 January 2011
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must consider visiting Pakistan so that the
progress made in backchannel negotiations on issues such as Jammu and Kashmir,
Siachen and Sir Creek is not frittered away, according to Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, a
former foreign minister of Pakistan.
Replying to a question after delivering his lecture at the Indian Council of World Affairs,
Mr Kasuri said President Pervez Musharraf might not be around but many other "major
actors" are, and India would do well to seize the consensus that exists in military and
political circles in Pakistan that peace must be given another chance.
Would Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani be willing to visit India? Kasuri
was asked immediately thereafter. "Yes, [it is] in the realm of possibility," he replied.
"When public opinion is ripe," he hastened to add. Notwithstanding his tentative
response, Kasuri said exchange of military officers was discussed in the backchannel
talks that continued till late 2006, by when, in his estimation, both sides had come close
to an agreed draft on the contours of a settlement on Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek.
Kasuri said Pakistan Army supports dialogue with India and it was on board on the
backchannel talks. It (army) was "not an obstacle as you imagine it to be", he said,
adding that the Pakistan military was appropriately represented in the backchannel
negotiations, which had the support of all stakeholders.
He said both Kayani and ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha favoured peace talks with India,
referring the diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks in which the duo are reported
telling the then US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson.
He also said that a majority of political parties in Pakistan supported a negotiated
settlement. "If India shows flexibility, Pakistan will reciprocate in full measure," Kasuri
asserted.
At the time when Kasuri demitted office, in 2007, India and Pakistan were discussing
modalities of joint management of Jammu and Kashmir in the backchannel negotiations.
Both sides agreed that joint management was not an ideal solution, but it was the best
under the circumstances. They had also agreed to monitor its implementation and review
the issue 15 years later. The proposals included demilitarisation, joint management and
self-governance, and it would have made the Line of Control irrelevant.
Kasuri indicated that Pakistan was open to strengthening the Joint Anti-Terror
Mechanism (JATM), which last met in 2008.
// Kasurispeak //
* "Let us not lose heart," when he was asked whether liberals in Pakistan have lost
space to fundamentalists following the assassination of Salman Taseer
* "I have no inhibition in admitting [to it]," to a question whether Pakistanis recognise
India as a secular nation
* India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline would have been "a good way to start" mutually
beneficial cooperation and it was doable
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