Concessions given to India, says Pak. paper

By Amit Baruah

ISLAMABAD, JAN. 19. The Pakistani Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had made ``several concessions'' to the Indian position on Kashmir in his interview published in The Hindu on Monday, The Nation newspaper said in an editorial today.

In the editorial entitled `CE speaks to The Hindu,' the newspaper argued: ``Making several concessions to the Indian position he (Gen. Musharraf) said that the Kashmir dispute did not have to be the only dispute to be discussed, nor even the first dispute.''

``It (Kashmir) could be discussed simultaneously with other disputes but it could not be sidelined. Pakistan also was not seeking an immediate solution of the dispute, it was only seeking a meaningful dialogue, in which all options were open. The implication being that India need not start from the point that Kashmir was an integral part of India and Pakistan need not start with the U.N. resolutions,'' the editorial said.

``While all this was on Pak-India relations, to which many in Pakistan would perhaps agree, it is the CE's ideas on the revival of democracy which may provoke a lot of controversy. His premise that military had been associated in civil administration at the behest of several political Governments, and has even been involved in solving constitutional issues, can generally be conceded but it would be hard to defend the notion that the military had only been a reluctant partner in ruling Pakistan and that Bonpartic ambitions among the military had not been there,'' the editorial, turning to domestic issues, stated.

``True that the political structure of Pakistan has always remained rather weak, leading to misrule by politicians, resulting sometimes to appeals by certain sections of the public for a military rule, but the CE's suggestion that the military should constitutionally be given a share of power, implies that the political institutions of the country can never become mature enough to rule on their own. Not only would that doom the country into a situation where democracy can never thrive, it would also become a thin end of the wedge for an eventual military takeover for good. One hopes that the CE would realise the dangers inherent in such a course and desist from pursuing it,''the editorial added.

In another comment,Pakistan Observer said that the Chief Executive's interview to The Hindu noted that cricket and bus diplomacy had failed to improve relations with India because the Kashmir issue was sidelined.

``The Chief Executive's forthright and steadfast comment on the causes of deterioration in the Indo-Pak relations is not only a fact of the matter, but also manifests his determination to remove the major irritant that has bedevilled their ties over the past half a century..'' the comment added.

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Section  : International
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