Singh: ‘Special gesture’

New Delhi, June 3: Foreign minister Natwar Singh today assured his Pakistani counterpart that the future of bilateral relations would not “lie in the past”, in an attempt to clear the air on his reported remark on “Simla Agreement being the bedrock of India-Pakistan relations”.

The call by Singh to Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri this morning was the second time the foreign ministers spoke with each other recently. A week ago, Kasuri had called Singh to congratulate him on his victory in the Lok Sabha elections and on becoming the foreign minister. Singh reciprocated the gesture today.

He took the opportunity of clarifying his stand when, “as a special gesture”, he decided to receive Pakistani high commissioner Aziz Ahmed Khan, who was in South Block to meet foreign secretary Shashank.

Singh had more than an hour of discussions with Khan and called the Pakistan foreign minister while the high commissioner was in the room. In the evening, Khan conveyed President Pervez Musharraf’s “greetings and regards” to Singh, said foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna, reports PTI.

Singh’s call came in the wake of a controversy brewing between the two countries in the past few days.

His stress on the Simla Agreement had led Pakistan to believe that India, under the Congress-led Centre, was trying to ignore the subsequent agreements signed between the two countries -- particularly the joint statement by Musharraf and Atal Bihari Vajpayee on January 6 this year in Islamabad.

The perceived shift in India’s position had even led Musharraf to call up former Prime Minister Vajpayee on Sunday to seek clarification.

Today, it was Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s turn to approach Vajpayee, but only to thank him for his “strong personal contribution” to the Indo-Pak peace process, reports PTI.

“I am confident that you will continue to make your valuable contribution to promoting harmony and cooperation between our two countries…” Jamali further said in his letter.

Singh had clarified his stand on Tuesday while addressing his first news conference as foreign minister. He said his reference to the Simla Agreement did not mean all other bilateral agreements were irrelevant and were being ignored.

He had emphasised that the Lahore Declaration and the joint press statement of January 6 were also important as they were “part of a chain” and reflected that India did not have a “static” foreign policy.

A foreign ministry statement described his meeting with Khan as “friendly discussions”. The telephone conversation between Singh and Kasuri had “touched on all issues of bilateral interest and was conducted in a spirit of friendship, cordiality and bonhomie”, it added.

Kasuri had recently issued a statement that not only criticised Singh’s Simla Agreement as “bedrock” remark but also took exception to his attempt at proposing the Chinese model in improving India-Pakistan relations. This model envisages a freeze on border disputes till progress is made in other areas.

Singh had clarified that though the proposal was not formal, it was not new as several Indian leaders had cited it in the past.