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India terms Pakistan reaction to peace talks "unfortunate"

IRNA

New Delhi, Oct 27, IRNA -- India`s Foreign Minister, Yashwant Sinha 
on Sunday termed as "unfortunate", the reported remark of his 
Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri that India`s proposals 
for new bus services and resumption of cricket ties between the two 
countries were a ploy to avoid dialogue with Islamabad on Kashmir 
issue, local press reported on Monday. 
Sinha said, "Kasuri`s statement is not in consonance with the 
gesture shown by India in normalizing relations and easing tension 
between the two countries." 
"Instead of appreciating India`s peace proposals, Pakistan is 
unnecessarily insisting on resumption of dialogue," he added. 
Sinha said that talks with Islamabad could start when it stops 
assisting cross border terrorism. 
According to some other reports in the press, the Indian 
government after making a big impression with its offer of a package 
of confidence-building measures last week to Pakistan must now be 
prepared to sustain this initiative irrespective of the nature of 
Islamabad`s reaction. 
"If Pakistan`s reaction is essentially negative, India must be in 
a position to unveil another series of moves. If India`s emerging 
strategy towards Pakistan might be called "positive unilateralism", 
the core assumption underlying it must be that New Delhi will not 
take "no" for an answer from Islamabad," C Rajamohan, strategic 
editor of the Hindu, a New Delhi-based English daily said. 
"Positive unilateralism is a national strategy that tries to 
engineer a substantive shift in the difficult ties with another 
nation over the long term. It avoids exclusive reliance on formal 
negotiations and bets on unilateral actions that could create better 
conditions under which traditional negotiations could succeed," he 
said. 
The first priority for India is to find ways to implement some 
of the proposals it had unveiled last week unilaterally. For example, 
India could unilaterally let senior citizens cross the border on 
foot, Rajamohan said. 
Economic cooperation is particularly amenable to unilateral 
action. Instead of continuing to negotiate tariff reductions in a 
multilateral or bilateral format, India could unilaterally announce 
greater market access to a range of exportable goods in Pakistan. 
Can Islamabad say no? Can Pakistan refuse an Indian offer to start 
negotiations immediately on the issues relating an overland pipeline 
from Iran to India through its territory? 
/212 
End