New Delhi, April 11
Foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon today addressed the fundamental question of trust deficit between India and Pakistan and offered a dialogue on nuclear doctrines to Islamabad. Menon also bluntly stated that no political party or responsible or influential person in India wished to “undo” Pakistan as it was against India’s self-interest.

“If despite the possession of nuclear weapons and India’s no-first-use policy there are feelings of insecurity in Pakistan, India is ready to discuss these issues in a dialogue on nuclear doctrines, military-to-military contacts, and military CBMs, both conventional and nuclear, either officially or through think-tanks and other less official means. A small beginning has been made in the past two years, but we will be ready to build on this rapidly if Pakistan wishes to,” Menon said in his speech at Jamia Millia Islamia University this evening on “India-Pakistan: Understanding the Conflict Dyanmics”.

“India needs a stable, prospering Pakistan at peace with herself, on India’s periphery. India sincerely believes that a stable, prosperous and moderate Pakistan is in the interest of India and the sub-continent. When our neighbors live in peace, we live in peace. I will assume that the same is true of Pakistan. A stable, prospering India can actively assist Pakistan’s quest to develop herself.”

The Foreign Secretary addressed himself to another popular impression - that the Pakistan army needed hostility towards India in order to justify its hold on power in Pakistan. “To me this too does not seem a sufficient explanation. The Pakistan army’s dominance over Pakistan’s internal political space has now lasted for so many years, and is so complete, that it seems no longer to need an external threat to justify its rule.”

He did some plain talk, unpalatable to Pakistani ears. He said India’s domestic politics did not make India-Pakistan hostility inevitable and hastily added that one could not say the same for Pakistan. He pooh-poohed the much-talked about theory of India-Pakistan competition in Afghanistan as outdated notions of the 19th century and said such reflexive reactions failed to reflect today’s reality.

Menon concluded with: “There will be nothing worse for India and Pakistan than to repeat in the future the sterile pattern of hostility of the past 60 years.”