The Hindu : Evolve consensus

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 03, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Evolve consensus

Sir, — Malini Parthasarathy's interview with the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, (April 1) is a landmark achievement. Her questions were pertinent to the present state of affairs and constructive and devoid of any sensationalism that go with such top-level interviews given by the Head of a State to a foreign journalist. Her questions extracted detailed answers without in any way compromising our national stand on all issues.

Gen. Musharraf's view that the joint declaration of Agra was `fouled up' because of L.K. Advani is revealing. But the million dollar question was, `given that Pakistan has a certain position, India has a certain position on Kashmir, and the gap is intractable, despite rounds and rounds... is there anything new that you can give to break this stalemate to find a meeting point'. Apart from saying that this should be discussed, the President could not come out with any specific formula. In the present context and circumstances, no political party in India would dare to take any further initiatives. If the Kashmir problem has to be solved, a consensus should be arrived at by all political parties by departing from our self-imposed rhetoric but this is hardly possible at present with an opportunistic coalition of political parties at the helm.

S. Venugopalan,
Chennai

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