New Delhi: The demise of former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday in Dubai due to a prolonged illness, has brought forth the memories of the 2001 historic Agra Summit.
The summit between the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Musharraf had begun with lots of optimism, however it ended in a failure.
Considered as a missed opportunity for India and Pakistan, the Agra Summit, according to former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri in his book “Neither a Hawk nor a Dove” the “solution to Kashmir was in the grasp of both governments”.
Years later, Musharraf had claimed that the Indian side had gone back on the agreement even though a draft resolution was ready to be signed.
“I was told that the Indian Cabinet had refused to give its nod,” Musharraf had said at an event in 2004.
According to another account, separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani was to be blamed for the failure of talks.
According to Kasuri’s book, Geelani described Musharraf’s four-point agenda as “vague”, and criticised the President’s statement on UNSC resolutions’ relevance to Kashmir.
Reports also claim that Vajpayee did not have full faith in Musharraf, especially after his role in the Kargil war in 1999.
As a result, the Agra summit collapsed and the treaty couldn’t be signed.
–IANS
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