Pak silence peeves visiting Indian MPs

Terming their visit as a great success for promoting peace and people to people contacts, members of the Indian parliamentary delegation tod...

Terming their visit as a great success for promoting peace and people to people contacts, members of the Indian parliamentary delegation today said they were intrigued by the total lack of response from the Pakistan government to their visit.

‘‘There is no doubt the response is overwhelming. We have been treated with utmost respect, love and affection. People have gone out of the way to extend the hand of friendship,’’ noted journalist and delegation leader Kuldip Nayyar said while interacting with the Indian media here along with other members of the team. ‘‘However, we are surprised over the steady silence from Pakistan government to the visit,’’ he said. ‘‘There is no direct or indirect message from the government of Pakistan. We are not aware what is their agenda is. Seven of us from different parties came from India and they have deliberately kept away,’’ he said.

The ‘‘official silence,’’ Nayyar said, is more confounding as Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, whom he personally knew for so long did not call up to say hello. ‘‘Kasuri treated me so well when I was here few months ago. This time he did not even call me,’’ he said. However, the delegation, which left for Karachi today from where they would return home, was happy that acting President Mian Muhammad Sumroo hosted an official dinner. ‘‘But there was no interaction.’’

Nayyar believes that the steady silence from the establishment was a tit-for-tat response to the Indian Government’s treatment of Pakistan MP’s delegation which visited India last month. He said the Indian government was not prepared to meet the Pakistani MPs delegation as their visit came almost immediately after Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s peace initiative. ‘‘It was because the Indian Government was unprepared.” On the contrary, he said Pakistan had enough time to prepare for the Indian MPs visit, ‘‘if they wanted to send any message.’’ (PTI)