Vajpayee gives go ahead for visit by Pak lawmakers

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has given his consent to a visit by a delegation of Pakistani lawmakers, Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Kuldip Nayar told rediff.com on Saturday.

Nayar, who broached the idea of the visit to Vajpayee two months ago after a visit to Pakistan, said the visit, which was to have begun on May 8, has been postponed by 10 days.

Giving credence to the theory of a track-II diplomacy Nayar insisted the visit of the lawmakers was decided before Vajpayee spoke to his Pakistani counterpart Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali on telephone. In fact, he said Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had also given the green signal for 'people-to-people' contact before the current thaw in Indo-Pak ties.

"About ten weeks ago I visited Pakistan passing through the Attari border. I spoke to some people there and they too felt as deeply as we did that our mutual relations were frozen and some movement should take place," the former high commissioner to United Kingdom explained how he came up with the idea. "When I spoke to a few Pakistani senators in this context, they wanted Indian MPs to visit their country first. But this was not possible because the Budget Session of Parliament had started. So the Pakistani lawmakers decided to make the first move."

On reasons for the postponement of the visit, Nayar said that some of the Pakistani lawmakers were 'busy'. "Besides, both sides needed some preparation and the Indian MPs needed to make arrangements for their Pakistani guests in Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. The Pakistani lawmakers expressed their desire to visit places like Ajmersharif and the Taj Mahal, so these arrangements have to be made," Nayar said.

Asked about the agenda of the delegation, he said, "No we have not yet worked out an agenda. The visit is basically designed to thaw the frozen relations between our two countries. Both sides felt that it was high time the people-to-people relations were moved forward."

On the possible composition of the delegation, Nayar said, "We are trying to get Ikzat Hassan who was a former minister in the Pakistan People's Party government of Benazir Bhutto. We are also trying to get Wali Khan's son. They will be from different political parties."

Nayar is glad that a beginning has been made. "I can tell you for a fact that many people in both India and Pakistan were suffocating that our otherwise warm relations were being unnecessarily frosty," he said.

According to him, many families in both the countries were separated during partition and this was a major consideration for boosting the people-to-people contact.

The Rajya Sabha MP, however, did caution. "Whether people-to-people contact will be allowed to go to the full extent, I don't know because there [in Pakistan] the army's agenda is different. We want the air, train and bus services between the two countries to resume as that will help break the ice further on the dealings between the two governments."