From North to Pakistan: Reynolds the peace broker

IT’S the case of the unlikely diplomat. Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds yesterday recalled how he tried to broker peace in one of the most volatile regions in the world.

The disputed territory of Kashmir has ignited several wars between Pakistan and India over the past 60 years. But that held little fear for Mr Reynolds, his appetite for conflict resolution seemingly whetted by his work in the North.

The former Taoiseach told how he brokered meetings between Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and then Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2001.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio, he said Mr Musharraf, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, had been impressed by Mr Reynolds’s work in the North and contacted him.

Initially, Gen Musharraf required Mr Reynolds’s assistance to foster better relations with the United States in the immediate period after his coup in Pakistan.

“I had a successful relationship with Bill Clinton over Northern Ireland and this man knew it,” Mr Reynolds said. “And he asked me to go and see him and I did go and see him.”

Mr Reynolds said he had “no doubt” he helped encourage warmer relations between the US and Pakistan. Following that, Mr Musharraf asked him to assist in solving the dispute over Kashmir.

“When we talked about Northern Ireland and how I managed to bring them all together, he then asked me if I would look at Kashmir,” he recalled.

The former Taoiseach subsequently helped arrange the historic summit between Pakistan and India in July 2001.

But he chose not to attend the summit personally, he told this paper yesterday. “I didn’t want to go myself. Although Ireland had good relations with India ... I decided it wouldn’t be fair, as I was more or less operating with Pakistani approval.”

Following the summit, Mr Reynolds decided his work was done. But there was one last significant episode. After the attacks on the Twin Towers, Mr Musharraf had tried and failed to contact US President George W Bush.

So he tried another strategy.

“He phoned me personally at home on the night of 9/11 and asked me to ring President Clinton,” Mr Reynolds recalled. “[He] told me he could inform Washington he could be number one in support of the US in Pakistan.”

Neither was it the last time Mr Reynolds was asked to get involved in conflict resolution. He was also invited to assist in Basque country, and, intriguingly, said there was one other issue on which he had been asked to help — but couldn’t discuss.