New Delhi: Vice President Hamid Ansari on Wednesday
said trust deficit between India and Pakistan was the reason
behind lack of progress on certain pending issues and felt
that some matters could have been resolved earlier when
relations were at a better stage.
Ansari was speaking after releasing a book
`India-Pakistan: Coming to terms` authored by Ashutosh Misra,
a researcher at the JNU.
He said the book was a case study of five issues between
the two countries in which the negotiation process was a
success in some instances and only a near success in others.
"The question that arises is why do states negotiate? Why
during the course of these negotiations they arrive at points
where the find their mutual interests can be adjusted? Why, at
certain times, some options open up during these talks? These
are questions which foreign offices the world over have been
dealing with on a day to day basis?
"... and then they are driven by certain hard reality or
situations to act upon during these negotiations. Of the cases
mentioned in this book the Indus water treaty and the Rann of
Kutch dispute were cases of success and the other three
issues, we know in greater and lesser measure, if on the right
track they would have reached their desired destination,"
Ansari said.
The Vice-President said, "Why did they not reach the
desired destination? For that matter why have negotiations
over other issues not made any progress? There are specific
reasons behind all of them but, if one was to generalise the
reasons then it is lack of trust in the negotiation partner".
He said if one looks at the five case studies in the book
and time line, it would be clear that the trust deficit had
receded over the past 20 years.
"The trust between the two nations was good during the
60s, 70s and even during the 80s. Discussions and serious
discussions was possible during that period. Relations were
relaxed. So this lack of trust can be dated to my
understanding," Ansari said.
He described the war of 1965, 1971 and the Kargil
conflict as acts of "perfidy" by Pakistan that depleted the
trust levels between the two nations.
Lamenting the dearth of studies on Indo-Pak relations,
Ansari said "we need to study Pakistan with a magnifying glass
and we cannot remain indifferent to what is happening there."
Ansari`s view`s come on a day when India slammed
Pakistan for sponsoring militancy and terrorism in Jammu and
Kashmir and said Islamabad should not impart lessons to it on
democracy and human rights.
Hitting back at Pakistan a day after its Foreign Minister
Shah Mahmood Qureshi harped on giving the Kashmiri people the
right to "self-determination through plebiscite", External
Affairs Minister S M Krishna said Islamabad must stop its
state-sponsored militancy and terrorism in the state.
PTI
