Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Sunday blamed President Pervez Musharraf for missing the opportunity of peace with India during the Agra summit and said that only bilateral talks could resolve the entire gamut of issues between the two nations. Bhutto, said that over the years, the Pakistani leadership was responsible for not seizing opportunities for peace with India. Emerging out of a half an hour meeting with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which was described as a courtesy call, Bhutto told reporters that her party would support any initiative at achieving this aim. She welcomed the expected meeting between Vajpayee and Gen Pervez Musharraf during the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Kathmandu in January next year even though the latter was not a democratically elected leader. She felt that there was more credibility when democratic leaders reached agreements.
Deeply appreciative of the Indian government's peace initiatives, she said that the Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf had missed the opportunity of resolving differences during the Agra summit. Her party had fully supported the Agra summit, she said.
When Vajpayee took the Lahore bus initiative, then prime minister Nawaz Sharif had missed the opportunity. When she was at the helm of affairs in Pakistan, her party had endeavoured for a tension-free South Asia but she too could not see its realisation into reality. The Pakistan People's Party chairperson, who lives in exile in London, was making her first visit to India after May 1991. She urged Islamabad to positively respond to the peace initiatives taken by India and emphasised that the two countries must try to create safe and open borders. Bureau Report