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Canadian PM offers to mediate in Kashmir

Ajit Jain in Toronto

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien has, on behalf of his government, offered "to facilitate" India-Pakistan dialogue.

He is, however, encouraged "that the leaders of the two countries recently re-launched bilateral discussions at Agra, and vowed to continue them during an early visit by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Pakistan."

In a letter to Liberal Member of Parliament James Karygianns, a copy of which was made available to rediff.com, Chretien said he would "continue to voice Canada's support for dialogue as the best means of achieving a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue and of addressing other pressing bilateral matters."

Soon after the Agra summit, in a personal letter Karygiannis had suggested that Chretien should offer to mediate between India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute and that Canada should invite "representatives of India and Pakistan to hold future negotiations on the Kashmir issue in Canada."

To that suggestion, Chretien has now responded by emphasising that "Canada has already offered its good offices to the governments of India and Pakistan" to facilitate their dialogue.

"Now that their bilateral dialogue has resumed, Canada's earlier offer has been overtaken, but we stand ready to provide assistance should the two governments call on us in the future," he stated in his response.

In a telephonic interview on August 10, Karygiannis said: "I will continue to encourage the Prime Minister of Canada to play an active role in these deliberations. It is with Canadian input as well as the input from the Canadian South Asian community where positive results are bound to come from," he said.

Soon after the Agra summit, Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs' spokesman Sanjeev Chowdhury had told rediff.com that "despite evident setback in failing to issue a joint statement by Indian and Pakistani leaders at the end of the summit, we continue to urge both countries to sustain a peaceful dialogue and to exercise restraint to make this possible."

Karygiannis has travelled to India and Pakistan several times, most recently during the Gujarat earthquake, and has many friends in both countries, including former Indian defence minister George Fernandes.

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