Musharraf praises Manmohan, but says he ‘lacks courage’

Musharraf says that India and Pakistan were very close to an agreement before he lost power.

LONDON: Former president Pervez Musharraf has said that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh deserves “full marks” for his “sincerity” in resolving the Kashmir issue and wanting peace with Pakistan, but has held back from making a “bold” move, fearing a domestic political backlash.

Musharraf said that it was Singh, and not his predecessor, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who deserved the real credit for the breakthrough in Pakistan-India realtions.

“It was with Manmohan Singh that we moved towards an agreement, not with Vajpayee,” he told NDTV in the second part of his widely reported interview with Barkha Dutt. “I give full marks to Manmohan Singh,” he said, but claimed that the Indian prime minister lacked “boldness” and “courage” in making any concessions on Kashmir for fear of domestic pressures. “In any agreement, there is give and take… and it is the ‘give’ part that creates problems,” he said while calling for a “bold and courageous” Indian response.

Musharraf said that India and Pakistan were very close to an agreement before he lost power. “We were as close as drafting the final agreement.”

Asked how close they came to an agreement on Kashmir and whether there was a specific draft on the issue, he said: “Well it was being formed. The draft was being formulated, that is the good thing, and it was being formulated in good spirit.” He dismissed the Lahore Declaration signed during former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Pakistan in February 1999 with then prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He said there was “nothing in the Lahore Declaration” that could form the basis for a settlement of the Kashmir dispute, which, he insisted, must be resolved in the interest of genuine peace.

Musharraf said that he happened to see the draft of the Declaration and was surprised that there was “no mention” of Kashmir. He said he had told Sharif that it made no sense following which a few sentences were then drafted in. “But he removed them from the final Declaration. In a way, he (Sharif) bluffed,” he said.

Referring to the “Agra Agreement” of 2001, Musharraf said that there was no agreement. It was only when the Congress returned to power in 2004 with Singh as prime minister that the two countries “moved forward towards an agreement.” He said Singh had a “very good sense” about India-Pakistan relations. “I respect him very much,” he added. Musharraf said he had “no regrets” over the Kargil affair, terming it the result of the history of “confrontation” between the two countries.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2010.