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| Sunday, 21 September 2003 |
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by HANA IBRAHIM When young he figured he'd grow up and be Prime Minister of his country one day. But the realisation of that aspiration eluded him by a whisker, because of his Punjabi origins.
Mian Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, the 63-year old Pakistani Foreign Minister still has hopes of laying claim to that pivotal post one day. But for now, the debonair, Cambridge and Oxford educated former lawyer, author and chairman National Assembly's Standing Committee on Information and Media, who was appointed as Pakistan's Foreign Minister in November 2002, has more pressing matters to attend to. Topping the agenda is the SAARC Summit, scheduled to be held in Pakistan from January 4 to 6, 2004. But following close on its heel is the India-Pakistan relationship and the contentious issue of Kashmir, with its disturbing offshoots of religious fundamentalism, terrorism and nuclear one-upmanship. Kasuri, an Oxford batchmate of Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Tyronne Fernando, was in Sri Lanka last week on a two-day visit to officially invite President Chandrika Kumaratunga for the SAARC Summit. He also met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. In a brief interview squeezed between a television recording session and a working luncheon, the outspoken Minister talks about the need to liberate SAARC from being held hostage to India-Pakistan relationship, the need for dialogue, the Kashmiri issue, India-Pakistan relationship and Pakistan-Sri Lanka relationship. Excerpts of the interview Question: The SAARC Summit was to be held last year. But due to Indo-Pak relationship taking a nose-dive, the meeting was postponed. Has the relationship between the two countries stabilized and does the climate for the conference seem more amenable now? Answer: At the moment the climate seems better. The very fact that the date was fixed in Katmandu, where all the Foreign Secretaries were present, caused some pressure for India to come to an agreement. Actually you can't have a SAARC conference without the agreement of all the heads of the SAARC member states. But you can say, this was the case even last year, but India didn't turn up then. At the moment the indications are that they will. Q: Have you extended a formal invitation to India to attend the SAARC conference? A: Well, I've already announced that I will be going to the other three SAARC countries - India, Bhutan and Maldives, somewhere in October. I have been to Dhaka, Katmandu and now I am in Colombo. Q: How important is the SAARC Summit to the economic social well-being of the region? A: It is very important. As it is, SAARC has been left behind other regional groupings... the European Union, groups in North and South America.... why go that far, ASEAN in our neighbourhood. And it has had a major impact on economic development and reduction of poverty. South Asia has been left behind the other regions of the world, and its socio-economic indicators are perhaps the worst in any region in the world, except perhaps sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately SAARC has become a hostage to Pak-India relations. And Pak-India relations have become hostage to India's internal politics. Q: Why is it so? A: This is so because despite the fact that in Pakistan, no political party, not even religious political parties use anti-Hindu and anti-India slogans to win elections, the same cannot be said for India. There are many parties in India that thrive on anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan slogans. Q: How would you describe current India-Pakistan relations? A: There are some positive things happening like confidence building measures. Recently 30 top parliamentary leaders from India were received at the highest level in Pakistan. The Prime Minister hosted a lunch for them, and the President received them in Islamabad. They had a three-hour interaction with the President. However, when our parliamentarians went to India, although the public and some opposition parties had received them well, neither the Prime Minister nor Foreign Minister nor Speaker had received them. There was a strong school of thought, which, felt that on the principles of reciprocity, these visiting Parliamentarians should not be received at the highest level in Pakistan. But we took a considered decision, a well-considered decision, to send a signal to the people of India by honouring their elected representatives. Q: What was the signal? A: The importance we attach to the improvement of relations with India. All these interactive activities are useful because they create the right atmosphere for official talks. But they are not a substitute for official talks. There can be no meaningful improvement in our relations unless we hold official talks soon. Q: Who or what would you consider as the stumbling block that is preventing the two countries getting together for talks? A: Pakistan has been repeatedly urging the Indian and the international community, emphasising the importance of bilateral talks, to be initiated through a process of dialogue, which would have raised all issues of concern to Pakistan and India including Jammu and Kashmir. It is India, which is delaying. Q: Has either party agreed to a compromise or likely to agree to a compromise on the Kashmiri issue? A: President Musharraf showed a lot of flexibility at Agra. And so did Prime Minister Vajpayee. But the trouble is that although they both reached an agreement between themselves that agreement could not be implemented and the agreement could not be signed, because at the last moment the hardliners in the ruling party vetoed their own Prime Minister. If we are serious about the dialogue, we need to resume from where they left off. Q: Have any efforts been made to do that? A: We made the efforts, but as they say you need two to tango. We can't do it ourselves. The ball is in India's court. There are very strong reasons why this process of dialogue can continue. The most obvious being that our economic development has been held back. For example in 1965 the value of manufactured exports from Pakistan was higher than the combined value of exports from Malaysia, Korea and Thailand. There is no comparison today. They are far ahead. Similarly India, in 1947, was the most advanced country among the developing Asian countries. Look at where it is today. China is expected to attract US$ 57 billion this year in foreign direct investments. India which is similar in size had US$ three billion last year and Pakistan less than a billion. Foreign direct investment is the quickest way for poverty reduction. But unfortunately, as I pointed out earlier, the Pak-India relations are hostage in India's internal politics. And in my opinion, our relations are far too important to be made a hostage to internal politics of either country. Q: Accusations continue to be levelled against Pakistan of fostering or harbouring terrorists. A recent news report quoted the Indian Foreign Minster inviting the Pakistani President to join them in fighting terrorism. What do you have to say about that? A: President Bush, Secretary of State Collin Powell, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfield, and the European Union leadership, have acknowledged the role played by Pakistan in the fight against terrorism. Those statements by the Indian Foreign Minister are like point scoring. If India feels that the problem in Kashmir is not indigenous, that is not true. It is an indigenous problem and even if there was cross border activity, the government of Pakistan has tried its best to stop it. If they feel that all the activities are taking place from across the border, across the line control, and not from within, why don't they accept Pakistan's proposal for a joint monitoring of both sides of the line of control. And in this connection I would be prepared to accept observers from SAARC. Q: It has been long argued that the best solution to the Kashmiri issue is a plebiscite for the Kashmiris to decide on self-rule. Why isn't either country considering this? A: That's what we've been saying, but the Indians have not accepted it. In fact that is the demand of the Kashmiris. And that is a UN resolution. As I have been telling you there have been three minor wars and there were continuing conflicts. The highest battlefield in the world is the Sachin Glaciers. We had a near war last year. Now neither India nor Pakistan is in a position to impose its will on the other regarding Kashmir. So what is the way out except a dialogue? And we want to initiate a dialogue. As long as India continues to delay this, the problem will continue to fester. Q: How would you describe Pak-Sri Lanka relations, especially in the wake of recent attempts by several Pakistani nationals to illegally migrate to European countries, using Sri Lanka's relaxed visa rules? A: Pak-Sri Lanka relations have always been close. There has been excellent co-operation in various fields including defence, economics and technology. The migrant issue is a problem that needs to be controlled through a better system of policing. Q: Co-incidentally, the Sri Lankan Minister of Interior is in Pakistan to sign an anti-terrorism pact with your government. Would you like to comment on that? A: Your Minister is there in connection with the anti-terrorism conference, we wish to co-operate with Sri Lanka on anti-terrorism. Terrorism plagues the whole of South Asia, and also there were some proposals where some prisoners of either country should serve the sentences in their own country. |
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