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Kashmir not sole focus of summit: Vajpayee

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said on Monday that Jammu & Kashmir would not be the only topic of discussion at his summit with President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan told reporters after a three-hour all-parties meeting convened to discuss the summit that Vajpayee stressed that Jammu & Kashmir is not a religious issue for India, but is related to the country's unity and integrity.

Mahajan said all parties extended their support to the prime minister's initiative of inviting General Musharraf and thanked him for taking them into confidence.

Significantly, Mahajan said the government had advised Islamabad that General Musharraf should not meet leaders of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference at the Pakistani High Commissioner's tea party on July 14.

"The Hurriyat has no locus standi and no legitimacy. Its leaders are Indian citizens and therefore they should talk to the Indian government on Kashmir," said Mahajan.

He, however, added that the issue involves protocol and "we will not breach any protocol".

Defence and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told the meeting that the no-war pact proposed by Pakistan would have no meaning until cross-border terrorism and the proxy war in Jammu & Kashmir are stopped.

"The prime minister emphasised that the deployment of Indian troops in Jammu & Kashmir is India's internal affair and it does not appreciate any outside interference on the issue," Mahajan said.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, told the meeting that during her recent visit to the United States, she had told Indians living there that the country was totally united on Jammu & Kashmir as on various other national issues.

Other prominent leaders who attended the meeting were Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Manmohan Singh (Congress), former defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati and Somnath Chatterjee, leader of the Communist Party of India, Marxist, in the Lok Sabha.

Among others who attended the meeting were Union Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Anant Gite (Shiv Sena), Digvijay Singh (Samata Party), Purno Sangma (Nationalist Congress Party), Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa (Shiromani Akali Dal) and Ali Mohammad Naik (Jammu & Kashmir National Conference).

Interestingly, George Fernandes, convenor of the National Democratic Alliance, did not attend the meeting. Nor was there any representative of the Telugu Desam Party, because of the local bodies elections taking place in Andhra Pradesh.

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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