Indian premier offers 'decisive talks' to Pakistan

The Indian prime minister today offered to hold talks with nuclear-armed neighbour Pakistan to end 50 years of war and acrimony.

“This round of talks will be decisive,” Atal Bihari Vajpayee told Parliament in New Delhi.

He said India is restoring civil aviation links that were broken last year amid the threat of war, and will appoint a new ambassador.

“We are committed to the improvement of relations with Pakistan and we are willing to grasp every opportunity for doing so,” he said.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry welcomed the Indian announcement, calling it “a good step in the right direction.” Pakistan was expected to reciprocate with a similar announcement later today.

Vajpayee did not directly answer MPs questions about whether he was changing India’s policy of not holding talks with Pakistan until Islamic militants stop crossing the frontier to wage attacks in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir and elsewhere in the country.

He spoke obliquely, saying, “This is a new beginning.

“We don’t want to forget the past,” he said, “but we don’t want to remain slaves of the past. The past should not shackle us.”

Vajpayee said Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali invited him during a phone call to visit Islamabad for talks, but he has declined.

The phone chat was the first such high-level contact in almost two years, since a December 2001 attack on India’s Parliament that the New Delhi government blamed on Pakistan’s spy agency and on militants based on Pakistani territory.