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US should mediate, says Gen Karamat

General (retd) Jehangir Karamat, former chief of the Pakistan Army, favours the United States playing a mediator's role between India and Pakistan and said the time had come for the bilateral peace process to be institutionalised with long-term objectives.

Claiming that the "time window" for boosting the Indo-Pak dialogue was "very brief", Karamat, the first top-ranking former Pakistani military chief to visit New Delhi, counselled the Vajpayee government not to miss "opportunities" and prolong the resumption of talks.

Suggesting that the United States could play a mediatory role, Gen Karamat, who was in Delhi to attend a seminar, said this was necessary so that if New Delhi or Islamabad faltered, Washington could act as a broker by "pointing out to the two countries their respective limitations".

"It is up to the United States whether they want to be an upfront mediator or guiding from the shadows," Gen Karamat said, asserting that Washington would be guided by local factors.

On Kashmir, the general, who is known in Pakistan for preferring a graceful exit rather than forcing a showdown with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief, saw "positive signs" that political forces were shaping to take over from militant groups.

Though conceding that there could be no immediate results, Gen Karamat said the two countries should institutionalise the peace process keeping long-term objectives in view.

Karamat said that in the coming days there would be emphasis from both sides to boost economic integration through bodies like the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, which he said had not been effective in the past.

Stressing that a new Indo-Pak thaw would be constructive, the former army chief said there were no two opinions that India was emerging as the dominant economic and geographic regional power in south Asia.

But he put a rider to his assertions by asking, "Does it raise a reassurance or security concerns?"

Karamat disagreed that the present freeze between Islamabad and New Delhi had come about after the 1998 nuclear tests, saying the intransigence had been there over a long period of time involving certain factors like the Bangladesh war, the Gulf war, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the end of the Cold War and the "struggle" in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Kargil crisis and the return of the military to power in Pakistan had also contributed to this freeze, he said. But he added that of late there had been some positive trends like New Delhi's announcement and extension of a cease-fire in Jammu & Kashmir and Islamabad's reciprocation by de-escalating the firing along the Line of Control.

The general saw the showdown over Kargil as rooted in what he called the "unpredictable situation in Kashmir", adding that there was a plus point too as Kargil had proved that even if two countries possessed nuclear weapons, there could be "limited" wars.

Touching on the concept of nuclear deterrent, Gen Karamat said he saw complications in this as both India and Pakistan would find it hard to define the terms.

"India has to relate to this vis-a-vis China. For Pakistan, the nuclear issue is India-centric," he said, adding that an agreement to limit further development of a nuclear arsenal could be achieved.

The retired army general described Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's historic bus journey to Lahore as a "lost opportunity" and said the two countries had not done their homework before the trip.

On the state of affairs in Pakistan, Karamat said the struggle was for the survival of a "modern Islamic state", adding that the military regime in Islamabad was not by choice but compulsion.

PTI

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