Kasuri sees real leadership in Vajpayee
PTI, Islamabad
Making it clear that it was not "ruffled" by statements from India insisting on Pakistan addressing cross-border terrorism, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri on Tuesday said Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has "demonstrated real leadership" by taking the peace initiative."I absolutely believe that Prime Minister Vajpayee has demonstrated real leadership. He has shown much strength in the background of very provocative statements from his ministers......I am quite happy with Vajpayee. His heart is in the right place," Kasuri said in an interview to well-known anchor Karan Thapar here for SAB TV. He said Pakistan was not "ruffled" by a series of subsequent statements putting emphasis on Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism. "We politicians talk to different audience.....It happens all the time." "We have to learn to live with each other. We cannot chose interlocutors. We have to deal with whosoever in power in both the countries," the Pakistani Foreign Minister said. On Pakistan's perception that Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani was a hardliner, Kasuri said the Indians should stop demonising President Pervez Musharraf. Likewise, Pakistan too should stop demonising Advani. "We have to learn to live with each other. We cannot chose interlocutors. We have to deal with whosoever is in power in both the countries. Our relationship is far more important than to get bogged down with rhetoric," he said adding by doing that both the countries would be strengthening Vajpayee and Pakistan Premier Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali to bring about a meaningful dialogue. Kasuri said though Agra summit achieved little, he considered it successful. "Both Vajpayee and Musharraf behaved very responsibly in Agra. Both of them were denied a Nobel Peace Prize in the last minute. They have agreed to a draft. I know it and you know it," he said. He denied the existence of terrorists' training camps in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) and said that Pakistan prevented nine out of ten terrorists from crossing over to Jammu and Kashmir. Replying to persistent questions about the allegations of the presence of 120 terrorist camps in PoK, he said, "These are allegations. The number you mention is staggering, unless they are referring to refugee camps. There are no training camps. There are no terrorist training camps. These are refugee camps." Kasuri said Pakistan has sealed the LoC and if infiltration was taking place it was despite the efforts of Pakistan government. "We try to seal the borders, which we have done by the way. If the infiltration is taking place, it is despite the efforts of the government of Pakistan. We are trying stop. Probably if there were ten people wanting to go, we are stopping nine. But we do not have Alladin's lamp," he said in the interview.
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