NEW DELHI, JULY 26. In seeking a deal on Kashmir at Agra, Pakistan counted on the ``moderate elements'' within the Indian leadership in the hope that the latter would eventually relent on the question of ``cross-border'' terrorism. While reconstructing the Agra summit, highly-placed sources in the Government pointed out that the Pakistani leadership, especially its President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and the Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdul Sattar, had decided right at the outset to maximise negotiations with the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh.
Pakistan's strategy of engaging India at the political rather than the official level during negotiations became evident in the run up to the summit itself. For instance, the Pakistani side, on at least four occasions, rejected India's request to let the officials of the two sides talk and fine tune an agenda for the summit.
Pakistan's game plan became transparent when Gen. Musharraf, on the evening of July 15 at Agra, sought to unsuccessfully convince Mr. Vajpayee, to get personally involved in drafting a possible joint statement.
The Pakistani draft, therefore, reached the official delegations after Mr. Vajpayee declined to work on it. The text, once it reached the Indian officials, was outrightly rejected even as a starting point for talks. Instead, the Indian side put across its own draft for talks, on which the two delegations burnt the midnight oil. From the Indian side, negotiations for a ``joint statement'' were mainly conducted by the Foreign Secretary, Ms. Chokila Iyer, the Joint Secretary of the Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan (IPA) desk, Mr. Vivek Katju, the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, Mr. Vijay Nambiar, and the Joint Secretary designate to the IPA, Mr. Arun Kumar Singh. No breakthrough was in sight till nearly 4 a.m. on July 16. The status of Jammu and Kashmir remained the bone of contention.
The meeting between Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf began on July 16 on a sombre note. The Prime Minister, by then had already met his Cabinet colleagues to consider the efforts of the officials who had worked at night. President Musharraf had also met editors of leading publications - a meeting which had been telecast, much to the resentment of the Prime Minister. Both leaders found it difficult to reconcile their positions on Kashmir.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/07/27/stories/05271349.htm
