KHATAMI RETURNED FROM PAKISTAN EMPTY HANDS
By an IPS Correspondent
TEHRAN, 26 Dec. (IPS) Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami returned to Tehran
Wednesday night at the end of a three days official visit to Pakistan that
analysts, both Iranians and Pakistanis, said that protocol left aside, achieved
nothing concrete on practical matters.
In a joint communiqué issued at the end of the visit, President Khatami’s first to neighbouring Pakistan, the two sides emphasised increased bilateral cooperation and interaction on key regional and world issues, including the Iraqi crisis, the situation in Afghanistan and Indo-Pakistani disputes, principally on the disputed region of Kashmir.
On this issue, which is Pakistan’s top priority, though the pro-government "Dawn" said that the Iranian leader "shared Islamabad's concerns", but more pointedly, the influential "The Nation" regrets that despite Pakistan taking up the issue in the bilateral talks, the joint communiqué on the visit made no mention at all of the Kashmir dispute.
"It is a serious omission and reflects a reversal of the past Iranian position of full and open support for our moral stand. It implies that Tehran is not willing to ruffle its ties with New Delhi and expects Islamabad to understand its compulsions. The Iranian President's confidence expressed at the Shalimar Gardens reception, that India and Pakistan would resolve "the Kashmir problem" to ease tension in the region, does not make amends", the paper said in an editorial.
In fact, during a joint press conference with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Mir Zafarrollah Khan Jamali, Mr. Khatami dashed questions on Iran’s stand on the conflict over which the two countries fought three wars, but lambasted what he described as "seditious, intolerant and extremist" groups that with their violent actions, "tarnishes the image of real Islam".
"Pakistan and India should focus on reduction of tension and resolution of all issues, particularly the dispute of Kashmir through peaceful means", he stressed.
On Afghanistan, both Jamali and Khatami refused to answer questions concerning their past rivalries, when Pakistan was backing the Taleban they had pushed to power in Kabol in 1996 and Iran supporting forces of the Northern Alliance, but reiterated that they fully respected "sovereignty, solidarity and independence" of their war-shattered neighbour and support Hamed Karzai, the American-installed interim President-Prime Minister of Afghanistan.
However, analysts noted that while President Parviz Mosharraf is firmly on the American camp regarding the fight against Islamist terrorist organisations, chiefly the network operated by Osama Ben Laden, the Islamic Republic is Washington’s staunchest enemy and for this reason, was labelled by President George W. Bush as an "evil state", alongside Communist North Korea and Fascist government of Iraq.
According to the official communiqué, Tehran and Islamabad expressed "grave concern" over the on-going situation in Iraq and while opposing any "pre-emptive unilateral action against Baghdad", -- but without making any mention to the United States and its massive preparations for toppling the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hoseyn, they called on Iraq to "comply with UN resolutions".
"This is a humiliating set back for the policy of the ruling Iranian ayatollahs who not only oppose American war plans to put an end to the ruthless rule of the Ba’th Party, but also support Saddam Hoseyn, the man who killed and wounded millions of Iranians in the war he imposed on the Iranians in 1980, a policy rejected by a great majority of the Iranians", noted an Iranian scholar and war disabled.
On the economic field, the Iranian guest and his Pakistani hosts stressed on the importance and the "need" for realisation of the gas pipeline project that should take Iranian natural gas from fields in the Persian Gulf to India via Pakistan, calling the project "important for economic progress and stability in the region".
But the 3.6 billions US Dollars, more than 5.000 kilometres-long plan has lost its importance, economists and experts said, pointing out that not only the Americans are against this project, but India has discovered recently new gas fields but and Mr. Niyazov, Karzai and Mosharraf have formally signed the building of another gas line that would bring to Pakistan huge gas reserves from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan.
An editorial run by Dawn is the best example of the "futility" of Mr. Khatami’s visit to Pakistan:
"The visit by Iranian President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami to Pakistan has helped to give a new meaning to relations between the two states, providing them with better understanding of each other's policies", the paper said, without emphasising.
"Both the countries are now better placed to embark upon cooperation in a vast range of fields, from foreign affairs to economy", it added, without mentioning any concrete example of such cooperation and without pointing to the major issues that place the two rival nations at opposing sides, with one firmly in the American camp and the other at the opposite.
"In other sectors too there was considerable similarity on several issues that are of concern to the two states", the editorial went on, without pinpointing those sectors, except by reminding that the volume of exchange between them represents a few per cent of each country’s total balance of international trade.
"The fact is that the Pakistanis knows well that not only Mr. Khatami has no power, but also has lost much of his popularity at home, hence, besides conventional welcoming, most of his talks were conducted with the (Pakistani) Prime Minister and not the President", one Iranian journalist who accompanied Mr. Khatami noted, adding that the only issue both sides were in "full agreement" was that of condemning Israel and supporting the Palestinians. ENDS KHATAMI PAKISTAN VISIST 261202