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The Agra summit would only be a beginning of the peace process between India and Pakistan and needed to be built over a period of time to create the necessary political consensus, according to leading US think tanks.
Mr Dennis Kux of Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars asked Pakistan to show more flexiblity and to tackle the Kashmir dispute along with other issues including reducing the risk of a nuclear conflict in the region.
''The composition of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's delegation, excluding the Commerce and Trade Minister has the potential of making the summit a failure,'' He said in a briefing yesterday on the India-Pakistan summit.
Besides trying to arrive at a settlement on the Siachen issue, the two leaders should take concrete steps to lower the tension on Kashmir issue, he added.
Teresita Schaffer of the Centre for Strategic and International studies said the latest move to liberalise issue of visas by India was a mere tactics and not a strategy that could yield long term results.
Emphasising the need for a vision to settle the dispute she called for strategic compromises by both sides to arrive at a settlement.
On the contention of Gen Musharraf that the peace process was agreed to at the instance of United states, Schaffer said the US was not looking for jobs (to mediate) but was keen on results and stability in the South Asian region.
''A successful Vajpayee-Musharraf summit should be the pretext for the United States to lift nuclear weapons related sanctions against the two countries since the South Asian region will then become relatively safe from the present problem of nuclear proliferation,'' added Stephen P Cohen of the Brookings Institution.
Describing the summit as a win-win situation for the United States, Cohen said both India and Pakistan wanted to give an impression of achieving success due to political compulsions though it was still unclear whether they would get to the specifics of the Kashmir dispute.
''The summit is a pre-emptive move on the part of India to keep the United States out of taking an active role in South Asia,'' he said.
UNI
Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage
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