New Delhi, April 3
Pakistani leaders are known to be masters in the art of media management and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz proved to be no exception today.

Aziz handled his interaction with editors and senior journalists with élan without any moderator or aides. On the news part of it, there was no earth-shaking announcement or opinion. He treated it as a mega event, telecast live by various television channels, and handled it with aplomb.

The Pakistani Prime Minister remained unruffled when asked such inflammatory questions as to confirm or deny reports in Pakistani press on his stepping down from office. He assumed the mantle of a strategic expert when asked to explain how yesteryears’ mujahiddeen were dubbed as jehadis today. He did not take offence when asked about his sense of hurt on Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai accusing Pakistan of trying to colonise Afghanistan. He joked about the calamity called World Cup that befell on Indian and Pakistani cricket teams and suggested that the two cricket boards needed to consult each other on how to do and how not to do things.

A trying question put to him was that Aziz, himself a former banker, had spoken of “trust deficit” two years ago and repeated the same thing today as well. The question was how long, if at all, it would take to transform this trust-deficit into trust-surplus in the Indo-Pak context. He answered like a true banker. He said that first the two neighbours should try to bring trust-deficit to the zero level and then only it could be brought to trust surplus. On the flip side, Shaukat Aziz advocated greater trade and interaction in the context of Saarc. But he changed his tune when he talked of Indo-Pak bilateral relations. He reinvented Pakistan’s old theory of Kashmir first, trade later and said that bilateral trade was linked to progress on Kashmir. However, to be fair to the Pakistani Prime Minister, it was not a suo motu remark but in response to a question.

Nonetheless, Shaukat Aziz seemed confident about the “multi-faceted” Indo-Pak peace process. He spoke how the comfort level between the two governments was much higher today as compared to five years ago, how trade had increased, how disputes were being talked about openly. At the same time, he said Kashmir dispute was the key dispute and minced no words in saying that dispute resolution was the corner stone of the Indo-Pak peace process. “It (the peace process) is a bit by bit journey. It takes time. We are getting there. Things are moving,” he declared.

As for SAARC, in his address at the 14th SAARC summit, Aziz said the reason why SAARC had been slow in catching up with the other regional organisations was because the political environment in South Asia remained vitiated by disputes and mistrust and mired in conflict management. He suggested a five-point roadmap for SAARC as follows:

• Promote an environment of genuine peace and security in South Asia, since there is clearly a direct co-relation between security and development.
• Build mutual trust and confidence, thereby removing the obstacle of the trust deficit, which has hampered meaningful cooperation in the region.
• Reinforce and uphold the principles of peaceful coexistence.
• Build inter-dependencies and sharing of best practices so that we help each other to help ourselves.
• Promote a level-playing field for a truly effective regional division of labour and production. As a first step, this will require a truly open environment for regional trade - devoid of all types of barriers to free trade.