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India to restore diplomatic ties with Pakistan: Vajpayee

Musharraf sees a new beginning

AFP, New Delhi
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, in another surprise peace gesture, announced yesterday India would re-establish full diplomatic ties with Pakistan and restore air links.
But in an address to parliament, Vajpayee rejected Islambad's call for international mediation to resolve the bitter dispute over Kashmir.
Vajpayee, breaking his silence four days after telephone talks with his Pakistani counterpart Zafarullah Jamali, gave a clear signal of India's first steps in 18 months towards normalization of ties with its nuclear enemy.
"It has been decided to appoint a high commissioner to Pakistan and to restore civil aviation links on a reciprocal basis," Vajpayee told the lower house of parliament in a dramatic announcement.
He did not clarify whether Jamali, too, had agreed to upgrade Pakistan's diplomatic mission here but officials said the status of embassies are changed always on a mutual basis.
The announcement follows Vajpayee's offer of a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan on April 18 during a tour of Kashmir, which prompted Jamali' phone call on Monday, and ahead of a visit to South Asia next week by troubleshooting US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
The Indian media was yesterday awash with speculation that following its successes in Iraq, Washington was now turning its attrention to other global trouble spots, including Kashmir.
Indian officials have denied the US is behind the latest push and the State Department yesterday moved to quash a report that Washington had set a deadline for India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute.
While Pakistan did not immediately react to Vajpayee's statement yesterday, reports in Islamabad earlier in the day said President Pervez Musharraf had hailed fresh peace overtures between Pakistan and India as "a new beginning."
Musharraf said he detected a new attitude from New Delhi following Vajpayee's olive branch offer in Kashmir of dialogue last month.
In his parliamentary address yesterday, Vajpayee repeated the comments he made in Kashmir that India wanted peace with its neighbours.
"We are committed to the improvement of relations with Pakistan and are willing to grasp every opportunity for doing so."
He added his customary rider, however.
"We have repeatedly expressed the need to create a conducive atmosphere for a sustained dialogue which necessarily requires an end to cross-border terrorism and the dismantling of its infrastructure."
Diplomatic ties and air links between India and Pakistan were snapped following an attack on India's parliament in December 2001 by gunmen New Delhi claims were sponsored by Islamabad.
India lifted the overflight ban last June after acknowledging a reduction in infiltration of Islamic militants into Kashmir, but this measure has remained in abeyance because Pakistan made no reciprocal gesture.
Vajpayee yesterday rejected Pakistan's demand for international mediation to resolve the dispute over Kashmir.
"There are people here and
there who want to mediate. Why do they want to do this? It is not clear. Pakistan is a bilateral issue. Therefore there is no need for third party mediation."
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed in full by both.
Vajpayee also said his talks with his Pakistan counterpart touched other subjects as well.
"We discussed ways of carrying forward our bilateral relations. In this regard I emphasized the importance of economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, people to people contacts and civil aviation links.
"These would create an environment in which difficult issues in our bilateral relations can be addressed. Prime Minister Jamali suggested resumption of sporting links between the two countries. We agreed that, as a beginning, these measures could be considered, " Vajpayee said amid applause in the lower house.
"We were consistently saying that we want talks, but it was India that was showing rigidity," staterun Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) quoted Musharraf telling London-based Urdu-language television channel ARY.
Pakistan had been urging comprehensive dialogue for three years, Musharraf said.
"Now, it appears that some change has come from their side," he said.
Vajpayee offered to sit down to talks with Pakistan during an April 17-18 tour of Kashmir, the disputed Muslim-majority Himalayan region at the core of 55 years of tensions between the South Asian giants.
Pakistan had called repeatedly for dialogue but India had always rejected talks until the cessation of alleged infiltration of anti-India Islamic rebels from Pakistan territory into Indian areas. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of backing the rebels, a charge denied by Islamabad.
Vajpayee later qualified his peace offer by repeating New Delhi's precondition of an end to infiltration. Jamali nevertheless seized on the offer and in his unprecedented call on Monday invited Vajpayee to Pakistan for talks and offered to travel to New Delhi himself.
"This is a very good sign. I think it is a new beginning after the Agra summit," Musharraf said, referring to the July 2001 summit in the Indian city, the last time the two sides formally met.
The Pakistani president said he detected "a growing realisation among the Indian leadership" that "meaningful" dialogue was the only way to ease tensions on the nuclear-ready subcontinent.