Prof. Vikas Mathkari

Suspend all talks with Pak: Advani

Criticises Centre For ‘Compromising’ India’s Stance In Talks With The Neighbour

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Pune: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Lal Krishna Advani said here on Sunday that the Indian government has ended up helping Pakistan to project itself as a victim of India-sponsored terrorism by way of allowing Pakistan to mention Baluchistan in a formal India-Pakistan statement. 
“For the first time in the history of India’s diplomatic engagement with Pakistan, the Indian side has allowed Pakistan to mention Baluchistan in a formal statement and that too in such a way that India is made to look like the sponsor of terrorism in ‘Baluchistan’ and also ‘in other’ areas,” said Advani. 
“In other words,” Advani said, “the perpetrator of terrorism, which is what Pakistan really is, has succeeded, with the Indian government’s help, to project itself a victim of India-sponsored terrorism.” 
Advani was addressing a function jointly organised by the Pune Vikas Foundation and Vyaktivedh for the release of the Marathi edition of his autobiography ‘My Country, My Life’. The book was released at the hands of educationist S B Mujumdar. Spiritual head of Sadhu Vaswani Mission Dada J P Vaswani and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) organisers’ (pracharak) chief Madan Das Devi were guests of honour.
Advani described the government’s latest stand on agreeing for a composite dialogue with Pakistan on ‘all outstanding issues’, as a diplomatic capitulation. “How can the government reconcile such stance with its previous position that Pakistan must bring the Pak-based masterminds of the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai to book before any meaningful dialogue?” he wondered. 
The latest Indo-Pak joint statement was a climb down on the part of the Indian government from its own oft-stated position that “action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed,” Advani said. 
He wondered what big change had occurred over the last seven months since the terror attacks on Mumbai for the Indian government to shift its position. “The attacks were no ordinary incident. For three successive days, people across India felt like the country itself was under attack.” 
Advani said that cross-border terrorism had always been the biggest concern for India and that, this was also the key issue on which the talks in Agra between the then Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and then Pakistan president Gen Pervez Musharraf could not proceed to a meaningful result. “Pakistan’s insistence that elements sponsoring terrorism in India were freedom fighters from Jammu and Kashmir, was a key impediment in the Agra talks going further,” he added. 
Advani went on to demand that India must suspend all official talks with Pakistan, including secretary-level talks, until the country gets credible proof that the government of Pakistan has taken necessary action against the masterminds of the terror attack on Mumbai. 
He also demanded that the Indian government must seek the extradition of all those involved in such cross-border activities in the country, besides insisting on a time-bound dismantling of the entire anti-India terrorist infrastructure based in Pakistan. 
Advani said, “We have admission from no less a person than Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari, who stated two weeks ago that terrorists were created and nurtured in his country in order to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.”