The Hindu : Kuldip Nayar leads MPs' team to Pak. today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 17, 2003

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Kuldip Nayar leads MPs' team to Pak. today

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 16. Eleven Indian parliamentarians go to Pakistan tomorrow as part of the first, albeit unofficial, delegation to visit the country. The Rajya Sabha MP, Kuldip Nayyar, who leads the delegation, comprising MPs from the Congress, BJP, CPI(M), Samajwadi Party and the National Conference, said their purpose was to "reach out to civil society and pursue what the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, said in Srinagar: Let's have a dialogue''.

Mr. Nayar said he had met Mr. Vajpayee in preparation of the visit. The delegation, he said, was "on the same wavelength'' as the Prime Minister. "We agree that it is time to bury the hatchet and normalise things as soon as possible.''

The visit comes about a month after a similar visit by Pakistani parliamentarians to India. The significant difference between the two visits is that while the Pakistani group was able to meet only civil society groups and Opposition party politicians, the delegation will also be received by the Speaker of the Pakistani Senate who doubles as acting President in the absence of Gen. Musharraf and the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Sindh. Mr. Nayar said there was a lot of misunderstanding in Pakistan about India because of lack of information. He said he hoped the MPs' trip would go some way towards filling this gap.

Describing Gen. Musharraf's recent statements on Indian television as "unfortunate'', he said "but such rhetoric is going to be there, like blocks on a road.'' He accepted that cross-border terrorism had to end for a meaningful peace. But the Government of India should "make the border as hard as possible but make legal entry points (like Wagah) as soft as possible,'' he said.

Lok Sabha MPs, Shahid Siddiqui (Samajwadi party) and Pavan Kumar Bansal (Cong.), who are part of the delegation agreed that right now "the border is soft for terrorists but hard for ordinary people.''

Mr. Nayar said the delegation would raise the matter of permitting Indian journalists to use the border crossing at Wagah, at present something that only foreign journalists are allowed to do. The delegation, which will cross the border at Wagah, also includes the Rajya Sabha MPs, Kartar Singh Duggal (nominated), Rajeev Shukla, (Congress) and Lajpat Rai (BJP) and the Lok Sabha MPs, Abdul Rasheed Shaheen (National Conference), Jagmeet Singh Brar, Renuka Choudhury (Congress), Lakshman Chandra Seth and Abul Hasnat Khan (CPI-M).

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