AS Dulat, the former chief of RAW has said that Indian government should invite Pakistan’s Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and start the stalled process of talks between the countries, said a report in the Dawn.
Speaking to NDTV together with former ISI chief Lt Gen Asad Durrani ahead of the release of their joint book — The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace — Dulat said there was a new inflection in diplomatic and strategic fields across the world. “Who could have thought a few days ago that President Donald Trump would be talking to the North Korean leader? We should also think out of the box, as Dr Manmohan Singh used to say. Roll out the red carpet and invite Gen Bajwa, and see what happens.”
Both authors described people-to-people contacts as a low hanging fruit that could be plucked easily, including easing of visas and resumption of cricket ties.
Gen Durrani, speaking from his home in Pakistan, said he believed the meeting between former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani in Sharm el Sheikh had produced a path-breaking agreement, which bureaucracies on both sides had trashed. “The agreement to have a joint anti-terror mechanism would have been a great achievement for both. Alas, that was not to be.”
Earlier, Durrani has said that his biggest failure was that ‘when Kashmir uprising happened they didn’t know how far it would go.’ He added that ISI’s leverage on Kashmir during the 90s turned out to be less successful.
“Biggest failure was when the Kashmir uprising happened we did not know how far it would go… When it became lasting, we wondered how to keep a handle on it. We didn’t want it to go out of control, which would lead to a war that neither side wanted. Could we micro-manage it? That was our challenge. ISI’s leverage on the Kashmir insurgency turned out less than successful,” said Durrani.
According to a report in the Indian Express, Durrani added, “I think the formation of the Hurriyat to provide a political direction to the resistance was a good idea. Giving up handle on the movement-letting the factions do what they bloody well wanted to-was not.”
Durrani also pointed out that the Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s experience in Pakistan affected him in a manner that he believes that the country must be dealt with an iron fist.
