World | Pakistan
Zardari-Singh New York meeting aimed to boost peace process
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari is expected to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York this month for their first talks since Zardari became president, a cabinet minister said here on Thursday.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:18 September 19, 2008
Islamabad: Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari is expected to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York this month for their first talks since Zardari became president, a cabinet minister said here on Thursday.
Zardari replaced Pervez Musharraf as president this month. Musharraf managed relations with old rival India for nearly a decade, and since early 2004, he oversaw a peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
However, ties between the neighbours have become more tense in recent months, following a series of violations of a five-year-old ceasefire on the border in the disputed Kashmir region and a July bomb attack on India's embassy in Kabul, that India blamed on Pakistan's spy agency.
Singh said last month the Kabul bombing had cast a shadow over the peace process.
The Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmoud Qureshi, rejected a suggestion that the peace process had come to a halt, but added that a meeting between Singh and Zardari on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly was necessary. "The meeting in New York, I feel, is required because we have to continue to pursue the peace process," Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad.
'Hiccups'
"Yes, there will be difficulties, yes there will be hiccups, and there have been hiccups in the past as well, but we do not have to lose direction ... I am expecting a productive meeting," he added.
Pakistan denied any involvement in the Kabul bombing, but India expressed its concern about the possibility of Pakistani support for militants after bomb attacks in New Delhi last Saturday.
Speaking at a meeting in the Indian capital on Wednesday, Singh acknowledged home-grown militant groups were now carrying out bombings in India, but also said the role of Pakistan-based groups could not be minimised.
"We have reports that certain Pakistan-based terrorist outfits are constantly seeking to set up new terrorist modules within our country. This is a matter of utmost concern," he said.
India accuses Pakistan of arming, abetting and sending insurgents across the border into Indian-controlled Kashmir, where militants have been fighting security forces since 1989.
Pakistan says it only offers political support to what it calls a legitimate freedom struggle.
End to blame-game
Qureshi suggested an end to what he called a blame-game. "Without solid evidence, if we get into the blame game, in my view, it will be counter-productive," he said.
Qureshi said both Pakistan and India have suffered from the menace of terrorism, and the groups claiming responsibility for recent attacks in India had nothing to do with the Kashmir dispute.
London (AFP) Pakistan's new President, Asif Ali Zardari, must make fighting militancy in the border regions with Afghanistan his top priority, a leading think tank said yesterday.
However, he faces a tough job to gain the trust of the army, which could ultimately threaten his government, said the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in its annual review of global geopolitical security.
"Zardari's top priority is to fight terrorism and militancy in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan," said John Chipman, head of the prestigious London think tank, launching the Strategic Survey 2008 report.
"But the Pakistani army remains unable or unwilling to counter effectively the resurgent Taliban with over 110,000 troops deployed in the area."
US and Afghan officials say Pakistan's tribal areas are a safe haven for Al Qaida and Taliban rebels who took sanctuary there after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Strained relationship
But Islamabad has vowed to defend itself against violations of its air space and incursions by US forces from Afghanistan, straining the relationship between the "war on terror" allies.
"Zardari's major challenge will be to gain the trust of the army and build a consensus against terrorism and Islamist extremism among the political establishment," Chipman told reporters. "To pursue the campaign on terror, he will need to balance the conflicting interests of growing US pressure for military strikes in the tribal areas with the Pakistani army's decreasing tolerance for such attacks."
He added: "In order to reduce public opposition to such a policy, he needs to build bridges with the major opposition political parties.
"Most importantly, President Zardari will need to ensure that the domestic political turbulence, heightened by the growing economic crisis, does not place his own government at risk from the army."
Zardari, the widower of assassinated former pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was sworn in as President last week.
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