Talks with Pakistan: PM says only time wiill tell
By Arvind Padmanabhan, IANSTuesday, June 29, 2010
ON BOARD AIR INDIA ONE - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday said time alone will tell what would be the outcome of the revived dialogue with Pakistan though the recent talks between the home ministers held out “some hope”. But he said there has to be greater trust in the relationship.
“The home minister has been in Pakistan earlier last week,” the prime minister said, referring to P. Chidambaram’s meeting with his counterpart in Islamabad Rehman Malik last Saturday.
“I think there is some hope,” he told the accompanying Indian media on his way back from the G20 Summit in Toronto, only to add an immediate caveat.
“As I have said, in dealing with Pakistan our attitude has to be trust: Trust but verify. So only time will tell which way the animal will turn.”
The prime minister also said that US National Security Advisor James L. Jones would be visiting India next month to begin the preparatory work for President Barack Obama’s maiden visit to India in November.
“We have a really ambitious agenda,” Manmohan Singh said.
“He will be sending his national security adviser in the second week of July. He will meet our National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon,” he said. “They will chalk out the agenda for President Obama’s visit.”
At Toronto, the US president had praised the statesmanship of Manmohan Singh and the rise of India and said he was looking forward and “excited” about visiting India with First Lady Michelle later this year.
“It is a trip that I’m very much looking forward to,” said Obama, before holding talks with Manmohan Singh after the end of the G20 Summit where there was convergence of views expressed by India and the US.
“We are also just excited because of the tremendous cultural, as well as political and social and economic examples, that India is providing the world and has in the past.”
On his part, Manmohan Singh had said it was his privilege to enjoy Obama’s friendship and that he was waiting to welcome the US president and his family to India so that they could see for themselves the transformations the country was undergoing.
(Arvind Padmanabhan can be contacted at arvind.p@ians.in)
