We are committed to dialogue: Pant

By Amit Baruah

HANOI, JULY 25. The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr. K.C. Pant, today informed the 23-nation ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) that India would continue with its quest for good relations with Pakistan.

As part of a general review of the international situation, and the expression of interest by some ARF Foreign Ministers, Mr. Pant, who is attending the meeting in place of the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, gave some details of the recent discussions in Agra.

``India's approach during the discussions was that a narrow, segmented and unifocal approach would not work. The benefit of a wider approach is to broad-base the relationship and make progress on smaller issues that could help develop mutual trust and confidence and generate the much required goodwill needed for tackling some of the more difficult issues,'' Mr. Pant stated.

``We remain steadfast in our commitment to resume the composite dialogue and the Lahore process with Pakistan. In our future discussions, we will continue on the basis of the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore declaration between our two countries, which is the correct and internationally accepted norm. ``We will continue our abiding quest for good neighbourly relations with Pakistan. President (Pervez) Musharraf has extended an invitation to Prime Minister Vajpayee to visit Pakistan, which has been accepted. A similar invitation has also been extended to our External Affairs Minister, which too has been accepted. We will thus start afresh while maintaining our basic approaches to Pakistan.''

Appreciating the role played by ARF, he said the ASEAN way of ``dialogue and consensus'' should remain the guiding principle of the Forum, whose meeting here is being attended by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. Colin Powell, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr. Tang Jiaxuan, and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Ms. Makiko Tanaka.

``Our participation in the ARF is also consistent with our Look East policy undertaken a decade ago, as also the closer links we have strived to build with ASEAN as its full dialogue partner, and with individual ASEAN member countries,'' he said. (Talking to Indian reporters, Mr. Pant said he was happy with the ARF deliberations and added that India's interactions with the region had grown in the last 10 years. ``We are deeply interested in deepening and intensifying relations with ASEAN and ARF,'' he stressed.)

Mr. Pant referred to the menace of international terrorism which threatens the peace and stability of our region. ``The spread of the Taliban's ideology of medieval malevolence, obscurantism, fundamentalism and intolerance has the potential to unleash violence and divisiveness in other areas.....it is necessary for all of us to join hands to fight the scourge of international terrorism. It is also time for the ARF to take up the issue as part of its discussions on trans-national crime.''

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