External affairs minister Jaswant Singh has said that he does not rule out visiting Pakistan this year. He, however, said that that could only be possible if Islamabad halted its support to cross-border terrorism and ended hostile propaganda against India. “Nothing can be ruled out,” Singh said in an interview to German newspaper `Der Tagesspiegel` ahead of his three-day visit to Berlin from January 17. Referring to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee`s bus ride to Lahore in February 1999, he asked if anybody could have imagined that Vajpayee would cross the border with Pakistan and travel by bus to Lahore. “One cannot conduct external relations with the assistance of instruments of terrorism,” Singh said alluding to Pakistan, while also making it clear that giving up such methods alone could not constitute a formal condition for a dialogue.
Bureau Report