New Delhi, July 26: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has dismissed reports of differences between his government and the party over the recent India-Pakistan joint statement and maintained that he had the “relevant answers” to all objections and doubts expressed about that statement.
Speaking to journalists after a function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday, the Prime Minister said divergence of views on this subject was a “media creation.”
He said he would again reply in Parliament to the issues raised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left parties. He declined to comment on the Balochistan issue citing parliamentary propriety and etiquette.
The BJP and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have declared their intention to voice their concerns about the statement next week when the Lok Sabha takes up for discussion issues arising from the Prime Minister’s recent visit abroad. Even on Saturday, BJP leader Arun Jaitley described the statement as a “monumental blunder.”
The Opposition will also seek to know the government’s position following the G-8 statement on curbing transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Senior government sources urged a careful reading of the text which said: “Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas” and felt India would have no reservations about discussing an internal matter of Pakistan if it so wished because New Delhi had “a clear conscience and clean hands.”
The sources also rebutted charges of a change in government policy nine months after the Mumbai attacks.
The Indian interpretation is that the crucial sentence in the joint statement —“action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed” — means Pakistan would not be able to say there has been lack of progress in action against terrorists because of the absence of composite dialogue.
At this juncture when Pakistan had taken limited action against the masterminds of terrorist attacks, India too was interested in “limited dialogue” and would reconsider its options after being 100 per cent satisfied about Islamabad’s resolve to curb anti-India terrorist activity from its soil, they added.
–Agencies