'India Just Wants To Look Good'
Pakistan foreign minister wants to be remembered as the person who played a role in improving relations between India and Pakistan...<a > Updates.</a>
Pakistan foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri has a dream: he wants to be remembered as the person who played a role in improving relations between India and Pakistan. And it's because of this dream that he prefers to respond cautiously to questions, eschewing the temptation to provide sensational, headline-grabbing comments. Quite unlike information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, you could say. Such restraint is surprising considering that Kasuri's village sits on the Indo-Pak border and consequently experiences the diplomatic ill-will in all its ferocity. Fresh from his tour of Europe, Kasuri spoke to Mariana Baabar on the recent peace proposals India and Pakistan have put before each other.
What do you think of the recent peace overtures?
Hasn't Pakistan put forth an impossible precondition (UN documents) on India's proposal to initiate a Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service?
Why do you say that?
Why didn't Pakistan moot the idea of a Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service?
Why does Pakistan insist on guarantees that air links between the two countries—and overflight routes—should not be suspended under any circumstances? Can you cite any other instance where a country has been given such guarantees?
Don't you think overflight facilities will have to be extended to India at least by December, otherwise how would the Indian prime minister attend the SAARC summit?
India's external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha has said, "We have to point out at the SAARC summit that the previous decisions, not merely of 2002 but of earlier SAARC summits too, have not been fruitful." What do you do to that?
China, Japan and Iran have shown interest in joining SAARC. What is Pakistan's view?
What are the chances of Prime Minister Vajpayee not coming for the SAARC summit?
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