The Hindu : Walls must go: Vajpayee

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 28, 2003

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Walls must go: Vajpayee

By Amit Baruah

BERLIN May 27. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, tonight expressed the hope that the Lahore-Delhi bus would not go ``astray'' again and wondered why if Berlin could be re-united, India and Pakistan could not smoke the peace pipe.

Addressing members of the Indian community here, he seemed game to try for the ``third and last time'' to make peace with Pakistan, despite the bitter experience of the past. Mr. Vajpayee said during his last visit to Berlin the wall dividing East and West was very much there. But now it was gone. ``The walls must go. Distances must be reduced,'' he said.

Referring to his February 1999 Lahore visit on the ``peace bus'', he said he had gone with a message to build good relations. ``It's another thing that the peace bus collided with the peaks of Kargil and was shattered to pieces''. Mr. Vajpayee said the then Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, had to resign (a reference to the coup engineered by the Pakistani Army Chief, Gen. Pervez Musharraf) following his visit to Lahore.

The Prime Minister conceded that he was in the ``dark'' about what the Pakistani Army was plotting even as he talked peace with Mr. Sharif. According to Mr. Vajpayee, even Mr. Sharif was in the dark about what the Pakistani Army chief was plotting to do. Even then, India did not give up and called Gen. Musharraf to Agra (in July 2001). ``Vo nyota bhi khaali gaya'' (the Agra invitation, too, produced nothing).

According to the Prime Minister, Gen. Musharraf's terms were such that India could not accept them and the dialogue process was disrupted. ``But we did not accept defeat,'' he said, pointing to the third initiative that he had launched following his April 18 speech in Srinagar.

``Why can't we live together? Why can't we resolve our issues through dialogue?'' he asked. He referred to the fact that countries possessed ``power'', but not the wisdom to deal with their problems. Referring to newspaper headlines in New Delhi that Vajpayee's bus will go to Lahore, the Prime Minister pointed out it was not ``his bus''.

However, he said that even as India took steps to make peace with Pakistan it could not give up on its defence preparedness.

``The country cannot be left undefended....what if the other side does not want peace. We should be prepared for that.'' Stating clearly that India would take steps towards peace, he said the world was becoming a smaller place and distances had become less.

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