Former president Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday that India and Pakistan need to "bury the hatchet" and settle their differences to reduce poverty and ease tensions in the region. Musharraf fought against India in 1965 and 1971 wars and led Pakistan's army in the 1999 Kargil conflict in which militants infiltrated India's zone of Kashmir.
"We need to resolve the long-standing disputes between India and Pakistan because these are the causes of hatred, causes of conflict and the wars," Musharraf told a media conference in Indian capital New Delhi. "It's doable," he said, talking of resolving Indo-Pak disputes.
Musharraf said the issues need to be resolved to improve the "socio-economic development" of South Asia, home to hundreds of millions of poor. "It is high time we open our eyes to reality," said Musharraf, who has lived in exile in Dubai and London since stepping down in 2008. "We need to bury the hatchet." But "compromise should come from the bigger party. India should have a big heart because it is the bigger country," he said. Musharraf said that all outstanding disputes between Indian and Pakistan should be dealt with at the same time rather than following a "step-by-step" process. Chief among the conflicts to be settled is the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, he said.
"This is actually the root cause which spawns not only war" but also "religious militancy in Pakistan", Musharraf said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit. Turning to Afghanistan, Musharraf said the country faces two possible scenarios when US troops pull out in 2014 "Either Afghanistan goes back to 1989, when the Soviets left and warlords began fighting, or it goes back to 1996, when the Taliban came. If the US leaves a minimum force, then the situation should be maintainable," he said.
An APML press release adds: Musharraf was delivering key-note address, "Uniting South Asia: The Way Forward." No stranger to statesmanship, Musharraf harped on both countries displaying the right niyat, or intention, a word he uttered 11 times, and better leadership.
"Compromise should come from the bigger party. India should have a big heart because it is the bigger country. When the smaller party makes the compromise, it can have negative connotations," he said, suggesting that the latter scenario could be misconstrued as the "bigger party" dominating the other. "It's doable," he said, talking of resolving Indo-Pak disputes, adding, "There are three essential pre-requisites."
One, a "sincere niyat", he said again. Two, he called for downsizing the roles of bureaucrats and intelligence agencies, since they "find it difficult to break from the past". And three, all of this required a "leadership function". Musharraf also cautioned India on extremism, saying: "In India, one feels extremism among Muslim youth may be on the rise. Action would be required to neutralise it." He said that because India was in the eastern camp during the Cold War era, its external intelligence agency R&AW and KGB created problems in Balochistan. "But that is a thing of the past. It should not be repeated. That can lead to confrontation again."
Musharraf called Siachen a "minor issue". "We had identified solutions for both Siachen, it's just about fixing a line, and Sir Creek issue". He rejected the view among many that Pakistani intelligence knew al Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden was in hiding in Pakistan. "There was no complicity. I am 500 percent sure. There was negligence." So, was Pakistan's intelligence sleeping, Thapar asked. "Even CIA could not see 9/11 happening. Were they sleeping? You should allow the ISI to sleep once (in a while)," Musharraf replied in his wry humour.
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