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India Committed to Continuing Dialogue Process: Vajpayee
Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asserted Thursday that India is committed to continuing the dialogue process with Pakistan but asked Islamabad to build an atmosphere of trust and confidence for any improvement in bilateral relations.
"Dialogue must go on," Vajpayee was quoted by the Press Trust of India (PTI) as saying during a discussion in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, on the recent India-Pakistan summit in Agra, the first in more than two years.
The prime minister said that from New Delhi's point of view the Agra talks were continuation of the process initiated by Simla and Lahore accords.
Vajpayee said that just as what people did in match-making and marriage arrangements, he favored a "mil to le" (at least meet) policy in India-Pakistan relations.
He also emphasized that there is general opinion in favor of a dialogue with Islamabad, the PTI said.
There are speculations in the media that following the Agra summit in mid July which ended without any concrete outcome, Vajpayee had been under mounting pressure from both within and outside the ruling coalition to take a hardline stance on relations with Pakistan.
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