Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday he would make every effort to improve ties with Pakistan but he also cautioned that there was no certainty his bid would be successful.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speaks at a rare news conference in New Delhi, India. Singh said a major diplomatic effort was under way to improve ties between India and Pakistan, and that he was hopeful the talks would succeed.
Dr Singh, who was addressing a press conference to mark the beginning of his seventh year in power, was asked why he believed he would succeed in bridging a yawning trust deficit with Pakistan.
He replied: “Well, I can’t say that I know the answer. It is our obligation to make every effort to normalise relations with India’s neighbours. That is essential, I have always believed, to realise development potential of our country. We will make every effort; whether we succeed or not, that only the future can tell.”
The way the prime minister used the “trust deficit” to explain his Pakistan policy left it open to interpretation. “The trust deficit is the biggest problem and unless we tackle the trust deficit, we cannot move to substantive negotiations,” he told a questioner at the start of the press conference.
To that end, he said, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had “agreed that trust deficit is a major problem blocking progress in the direction of moving forward and that it should be our common endeavour to bridge or to reduce this trust deficit. That is why we have agreed that the foreign ministers and the foreign secretaries would meet”.
Ties with Pakistan were not part of Dr Singh’s written statement. However, it became a dominant theme with the media. “We are going to make a beginning,” he said.
“The composite dialogue had been suspended soon after the attack on Mumbai. Subsequently, the process has not moved forward and this will be the first major effort to deal with the underlined cause, that is, lack of adequate amount of trust between our two countries. I am hopeful that this process can move forward. That was, at least, the message I got from talking to the Prime Minister of Pakistan.”
He replied: “Well, I can’t say that I know the answer. It is our obligation to make every effort to normalise relations with India’s neighbours. That is essential, I have always believed, to realise development potential of our country. We will make every effort; whether we succeed or not, that only the future can tell.”
The way the prime minister used the “trust deficit” to explain his Pakistan policy left it open to interpretation. “The trust deficit is the biggest problem and unless we tackle the trust deficit, we cannot move to substantive negotiations,” he told a questioner at the start of the press conference.
To that end, he said, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had “agreed that trust deficit is a major problem blocking progress in the direction of moving forward and that it should be our common endeavour to bridge or to reduce this trust deficit. That is why we have agreed that the foreign ministers and the foreign secretaries would meet”.
Ties with Pakistan were not part of Dr Singh’s written statement. However, it became a dominant theme with the media. “We are going to make a beginning,” he said.
“The composite dialogue had been suspended soon after the attack on Mumbai. Subsequently, the process has not moved forward and this will be the first major effort to deal with the underlined cause, that is, lack of adequate amount of trust between our two countries. I am hopeful that this process can move forward. That was, at least, the message I got from talking to the Prime Minister of Pakistan.”
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