Unfounded concerns

India’s National Security Advisor N.K. Narayanan has expressed concern over the move for President Musharraf’s impeachment because he believes it can create political vacuum and strengthen extremists.

He stated that he had hoped for an honourable exit for President Musharraf but it did not look like to happen. It is obvious that India on the one hand is trying to destabilize Pakistan and on the other expressing concern over situation in Pakistan. One should recall the statement by Indian leadership about situation in former East Pakistan in 1970 when it had armed and trained Mukti Bahini to create chaos there and continued to express concern that India would have to accommodate millions of refugees.

Mr Narayanan’s statement should be read along with his another statement, which will expose his pretense and hypocrisy. In 2005, a delegation of SAFMA was on its way to Hyderabad to attend the SAFMA conference on “Dialogue with Regional Press” and had to stay for a while in transit in Delhi. A Pakistan editor who had met Mr Narayanan a day earlier and discussed progress on composite dialogue between India and Pakistan. Narayanan is reported to have told Gilani: “India will only resolve issues like visas and matters to encourage people to people contact but would never conclude any agreement on Kashmir till General Pervez Musharraf is at the helm. The reasons he advanced were: “Firstly, he is not reliable and secondly we don’t want to give credit to the military dictator”.

It appears that Mr Narayanan through his statement wanted to fuel the conflict and sharpen contradiction between President Musharraf and the coalition partners otherwise he or other Indian leaders do not have any love for President Musharraf or concern for Pakistan when they are busy trying to destabilize Pakistan.