WASHINGTON : India should take advantage of a mindset change in Pakistan towards it to initiate an “uninterrupted and uninterruptible” process of dialogue to resolve all bilateral issues, senior Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar has said here.
“There is a mindset change brought about in Pakistan as a result of generational change,” the Rajya Sabha MP said at the Atlantic Council think tank, referring to the change in Pakistani peoples attitude towards India.
India should take advantage of this new situation to initiate an “uninterrupted and uninterruptible” process of dialogue, he said, hoping that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would visit Pakistan before the next elections to set in train such a dialogue.
Aiyar said that he was pleased with the Pakistan election outcome because it constituted a genuine transition from a civilian government to another without army intervention.
The transition has shown that democracy had taken root in Pakistan and that the armed forces were more interested in nurturing the hugely profitable Fauji Foundation than running the bankrupt Pakistan economy, he said.
A substantial majority secured by Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad and Lahore looked set to give Pakistan a stable civilian government for the next five years, 72-year-old Aiyar said.
He also commended the UPA-II government on containing the hysterics of TV anchors and behaving in a responsible manner with China, underlining the enormous economic benefits that had flown since Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing in December 1988.
He also pointed out that the Treaty on Peace and Tranquility on the Border had enabled both countries to survive the trials and tribulations of incidents like those in the Depsang Valley without bloodshed. (AGENCIES)
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