Zardari’s speech at UN can postpone Indian PM’s visit to Pakistan

Islamabad based English Daily ‘Dawn’ reported that Indian newspaper, ‘The Hindustan Times’ wrote, “it could be one of the factors in New Delhi’s calculations not to press for a summit.” No official decision has so far been announced though.

“Officials in the know in Delhi aren’t ecstatic about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visiting Pakistan in the near future,” the paper said in a report which for the first time cited “officials” rather than “sources”.

“They cite many reasons for such negative sentiment, such as a lack of domestic support for an India-Pakistan dialogue when no tangible progress on disputes has been accounted for.

Officials explained the newspaper feel they a summit-level visit could only be seen as beneficial to bilateral relations once one would be able to quantify progress on the ground.

Although there were some political progress and a genuine effort exhibited toward reconciliation, Pakistan and India have still some ground to cover, added the newspaper, citing that even if India and Pakistan agreed recently on “relaxing” visa application , trade agreements and people’s movement in between the two neighboring nation, many more steps needed to completed  before “trust” could be re-established.

The newspaper argued that issues such as Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek “that are under the GHQ’s charge”, are still very much a sour diplomatic and political points, referring directly to President Asif Zardari’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he referred to the Kashmir dispute  as symbolizing the failure of the UN process.”

His comments were met by a statement issued by Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna in which he reiterated that Kashmir is an integral part of India.