



Former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has criticized Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s trip to New Delhi as one in which a ‘win-win’ situation turned into an unmitigated disaster.





Speaking with The Express Tribune on Wednesday, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader said that while the party supported the PM’s gesture and any efforts to make peace with India, the prime minister should have taken Parliament into confidence regarding his visit and evolved a consensual policy towards India. “It is important that peace is premised on mutual interests and benefits to ensure that it is long lasting,” Qureshi said.It is incomprehensible, Qureshi said, as to why the prime minister did not mention issues between India and Pakistan such as ‘Indian-aided terrorism in Pakistan’, when his Indian counterpart had put forward clear demands to Pakistan regarding the same issue. “The prime minister failed to use the opportunity for a one-on-one meeting with his Indian counterpart to raise serious concerns Pakistan has over the water issue, terrorism and the stalled composite dialogue and the Kashmir conflict,” Qureshi said.It was disturbing that for the first time a Pakistani prime minister visiting New Delhi officially failed to meet with Kashmir’s Hurriyet leadership, he added. Thus, the PTI leader said, the Pakistani nation was given a message of fear of Indian anger and appeasement.Qureshi said the only concrete item mentioned by Sharif was special investments for Indians in Pakistan and his admission that he wished to be viewed as a friend of the business community.“This uni-dimensional focus of Sharif’s India policy - which is in fact not a policy but a collection of short-term measures - on business interests betrays a lack of understanding on the overarching dynamics of the Pakistan-India relationship and the real conflicts that need resolution,” Qureshi said.“It also begs the question of whether the PML-N government has put the composite dialogue on the back burner to further certain business interests with India.”Meanwhile, PTI chief Imran Khan said, “We want peace on our borders, but we will see how Prime Minister Sharif represented us in his meeting with the new Indian prime minister.”Published in The Express Tribune, May 29, 2014.