The Hindu : Pak. ready to lift ban on Indian flights: Musharraf

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 08, 2002

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Pak. ready to lift ban on Indian flights: Musharraf
By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, MARCH 7. The standoff between India and Pakistan dominated the second SAARC Information Ministers Conference here with the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, making an announcement to immediately lift the ban on air links between the two countries, if India was prepared to reciprocate the gesture.

The Information and Broadcasting Minister, Sushma Swaraj, was caught unawares by Gen. Musharraf's offer and maintained that she was not authorised to respond either positively or negatively to the announcement.

Later, at a separate press conference with the Indian correspondents, Ms. Swaraj took exception to Gen. Musharraf raising bilateral issues at the SAARC forum and maintained that the SAARC charter did not permit a discussion of bilateral and contentious issues at its meetings. She said there was no change in the ground situation to warrant a review of India's ``diplomatic sanctions''.

The drama began with the Bangladesh Information Minister and chairman of the ministerial conference, Abdul Mayeen Khan, complaining at the inaugural session about the long journey he and his entourage had to endure to reach Islamabad due to the ban imposed by India on Pakistani flights from using its airspace. In the course of his brief speech, he made a plea to Ms. Swaraj to lift the flight ban on her return to New Delhi.

Picking up the threads from where the Bangladesh Minister left, Gen. Musharraf began his speech with profuse apologies to all the SAARC Ministers for the detour they had to take to reach Pakistan and said he had suffered the same ordeal when he went to attend the SAARC summit at Kathmandu in the first week of January.

``Let me tell you, this is not my doing. I hope that when we meet the next time, it would be shorter and faster travel. I wanted to tell the Indian Information Minister that I am prepared to remove the barrier on flights right away if she has the authority to respond'', he said.

Gen. Musharraf said there was need to expand the ``restrictive scope'' of the SAARC for the resolution of bilateral and all conflicts. His argument was that without resolution of the differences among the member-countries, there could be no harmony and progress. The greatest hurdle in the progress of the SAARC was in ``antagonistic relations and disputes'' among member-countries. ``Is co-operation possible in the face of political disharmony?'' he asked and answered in the negative. Quoting a Persian proverb ``they met, they talked and dispersed'' in support of his contention, he said that without resolution of the conflicts among the member-countries, the SAARC could not be expected to make real progress.

As soon as Gen. Musharraf ended his speech, a visiting Indian journalist got up to ask him if he was willing to take some questions. To the surprise of all those present, he came to the podium and said he was prepared as long as they were from the visiting journalists.

Asked what in his opinion was needed to defuse the tension between India and Pakistan, Gen. Musharraf said that both sides should withdraw their forces from the frontlines. ``We are engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation. Both sides have the capability and so it is a dangerous situation''.

Gen. Musharraf said the tension needed to be defused through an immediate understanding and Pakistan was open for any kind of dialogue. ``Let India withdraw its forces, we would follow suit without any loss of time''.

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