Neither Hawk nor Dove: ‘Modi will be unable to maintain hawkish stance’

Former foreign minister says CPEC won’t affect Pak-US ties

LAHORE:

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be in a position to maintain his hawkish stance vis-a-vis Pakistan, former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri told The Express Tribune in an exclusive tête-à-tête prior to the launch of his book Neither Hawk nor Dove.

The veteran politician said Modi had secured an emphatic mandate courtesy Gujarat’s economic miracle and not because of his tough stance on Pakistan. Kasuri posited that sanity should prevail and all outstanding issues should be solved through talks in the context of the recent spike in tension along the LoC and the working boundary. “I hope Modi’s desire to transform India into an economic powerhouse will bring the pragmatism in his personality to the fore and check the tendency among some elements in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to assuage its traditional supporters,” Kasuri said. “Every Indian leader I have met privately has said “let’s make history” to me,” the former foreign minister revealed.

Kasuri said that he did not believe that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would have any impact on the nation’s relations with the United States of America. “Pakistan’s relations with the US will endure and strengthen in the foreseeable future. Plus, the CPEC is not necessarily all negative for the US,” he said.

The former foreign minister said that the regional environment was undergoing a profound shift due to the emergence of the endgame scenario in Afghanistan. “It is absolutely essential to integrate the Taliban into the power structure to ensure that they do not feel sidelined,” Kasuri observed. “Pakistan must impress on them that the entire international community would oppose them if they attempt to secure control of the entire country. In the past, only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE had recognized the Taliban regime,” Kasuri has written in his book. “It seems that even China and the US, that have been vying for influence in other regions, are on the same page vis-à-vis Afghanistan, he said.

Kasuri opined that Pakistan had mishandled the Yemen imbroglio. He said contributing troops would have been certainly wrong but Pakistan had managed to irk its Saudi friends. “Our ties with the kingdom are exceptionally strong.  It would take a series of faux pas on our part to compromise them. We still need to learn how to effectively handle such situations,” the former foreign minister observed.

Neither Hawk nor a Dove is being published by the Oxford University Press and Penguin India. The book will be officially launched nationwide on September 8.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2015.