India, Pakistan should make border irrelevant: Manmohan Singh

PARIS, Monday (Tribune) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that with no question of redrawing borders, India and Pakistan should strive towards making the "border irrelevant" by giving a further impetus to people-to-people contacts and developmental efforts.

He maintained that the pre-requisite for taking the Indo-Pak peace process forward and for having a ceasefire in the violence in the Kashmir valley was for Islamabad to effectively control infiltration, cease violence and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure.

At the same time, he told mediapersons aboard "Tanjore", Air-India One, while flying to the French capital that all items listed on the agenda of the Indo-Pak composite dialogue were contained in the joint statement issued during the visit of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to India in April.

He acknowledged that some progress had been made, like the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service had become a reality.

Stressing that he was looking forward to his dinner meeting with General Musharraf on the sidelines of the 60th UNGA meeting in New York later this week, Dr Manmohan Singh explained: "We are committed to reviewing the progress in every sphere of the bilateral agenda.

We will see what further can be done." He stressed "he had not changed his mind" that General Musharraf "is the man with whom you can trust and do business with".

On the specific issue of Sarabjit Singh who is on death row and understood to have confessed to his involvement in bombings in Pakistan, the Prime Minister noted that there had been positive talks with Pakistan on this and other issues.

Asked for his comments about Chairman of APHC Mirwaiz Umer Farooq meeting General Musharraf in New York, the Prime Minister noted, "We have agreed for the Hurriyat Conference to let us know the precise points that it wants to discuss.

I will be meeting them again after which we will decide at what level the discussions will continue". He refused to discuss the Hurriyat leader's meeting with the Pakistan President on the ground that they were Indians and he did not find it necessary to discuss their meetings with foreign dignitaries.