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India offers Pak 12 steps to peace
INDIA sprung a surprise on Pakistan on Wednesday by announcing 12 peace proposals with a view to taking forward Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee?s April 18 Srinagar initiative. All the proposals, announced by External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha at a press conference here, are aimed at increasing people-to-people contacts. The minister said the proposals were part of the ?normalisation process? to take the Indo-Pak relationship back to the pre-December 13, 2001 situation.
INDIA sprung a surprise on Pakistan on Wednesday by announcing 12 peace proposals with a view to taking forward Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s April 18 Srinagar initiative.
All the proposals, announced by External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha at a press conference here, are aimed at increasing people-to-people contacts. The minister said the proposals were part of the “normalisation process” to take the Indo-Pak relationship back to the pre-December 13, 2001 situation.
“There is a groundswell of support for the Prime Minister's initiative at the people's level,” said Sinha. “Whatever the type of regime, people in authority have to respond to popular will. We’re hopeful that Pakistan will be persuaded to give up the path of cross-border terrorism and come to the negotiating table.”
The most significant of the dozen proposals — approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security on Wednesday morning and conveyed to Pakistan in the afternoon — is a trans-Line of Control (LoC) bus link between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Asked if the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus offer amounted to giving up India’s claim over PoK and accepting the LoC as the international border, Sinha said that the LoC was the “existing reality”.
Whether this bus service would be a general one or restricted to Kashmiris from both sides of the LoC could be discussed with Pakistan, he said.
The other proposals involve resumption of air and rail links, as also India-Pak sporting encounters, including cricket. New Delhi also suggested a Mumbai-Karachi ferry service and the linking of Rajasthan and Sindh with a bus or rail service between Khokhrapar and Munabao.
However, vintage Indo-Pak rhetoric permeated the peace offer. “India’s offer should not be seen as a sign of weakness,” Sinha stressed.
“The war against terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism, will continue,” the minister said.
He also said that resumption of the rail link could take place only after the successful completion of talks to restore air links. And there was no question of India capitulating to Pakistan’s insistence on a guarantee that it would not slap an airspace closure on Pakistani flights again, the minister said.
Meanwhile, a senior government source in Islamabad told HT that Pakistan would respond to the latest Indian peace initiatives after a meeting between President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali on Friday.
Foreign Office spokesman Masud Khan said in a statement that Pakistan would seriously consider the proposals before responding. He said Pakistan would respond positively to the proposals.
