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By Amit Baruah
The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, coming out of the helicopter in Evian for the G-8 Summit on Sunday. — AFP
Fresh from attending the G-8 "enlarged dialogue" across Lake Geneva in Evian, France, the Prime Minister said he told the U.S. President, George W. Bush, in St. Petersburg that some "preliminary" talks with Pakistan had taken place but that real discussions would happen when cross-border terrorism was ended by Pakistan. Even as he called for a multipolar world, Mr. Vajpayee said no decision had been taken "as of now" on sending Indian troops to Iraq, but confirmed that requests for deploying the troops had come. Clarifications had been sought about the role these troops would be expected to play, he said. In St. Petersburg, during his interactions with world leaders, the issue of "threats" being issued to Iran and the question of Syria came up for discussion. An assurance was "given" that there would be no military action, but it remained to be seen whether this "assurance" would be kept. According to the Prime Minister, Mr. Bush did not say anything when these issues were discussed. Mr. Vajpayee said that it looked as if there would be a new forum in the world following the "developed plus developing" nations dialogue convened by the French President, Jacques Chirac, under the aegis of the G-8. "Till now, there were separate forums for developing and developed nations. A new organisation is taking root which will represent the whole world." Mr. Vajpayee's remarks at a press conference today came after Mr. Bush told the closed-door "G-8 plus developing 12" meeting on Sunday that he would be inviting developing nations for next year's summit when Washington took over the G-8 presidency. And then, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammed, "thanked" Mr. Bush on behalf of the developing nations that had assembled. For its part, France had said earlier that it was a "one-time" invitation, but a precedent seems to have been set nevertheless. On his talks with Mr. Bush, Mr. Vajpayee said he had told the U.S. President of the urgent need to end cross-border terrorism. "To this, Mr. Bush said, yes, I know this is very necessary," Mr. Vajpayee said. Mr. Bush said he would "tell" his Pakistani counterpart, Pervez Musharraf, of the concerns, but did not use the word "pressure". Referring to the meeting with the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, the Prime Minister said there was a "reference" to the boundary issue during the discussions. He himself had been keen on meeting the new Chinese leader. "There was also talk about my visit to China (later this month)," Mr. Vajpayee said quoting Mr. Hu as saying that the Chinese Government was eagerly waiting for his visit to Beijing. The Prime Minister suggested that two camps were emerging in the world — the U.S. and its allies, and those who had opposed military action in Iraq. But India was with "both" and "both" wanted to take India along. In a detailed response to requests for deploying troops in Iraq, Mr. Vajpayee said clarifications had been sought about whether Indian personnel would be simply required to maintain law and order or use force if required in a riot situation. How many days would these troops require to stay in Iraq? What command would they serve under? There was, he said, a system in the U.S. that Americans troops only served under American command. "Yeh niyam hamare yahan bhi hai. Bharat mein (this system existed in India as well)".
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