UK/Argentina group after the Falklands conflict and the UK/Ireland group. Making a brief reference to the Kashmir problem and to the provocative speech in the IPU conference yesterday by the Pakistan speaker he asked if the Prime Minister thought such an Indo/Pakistan parliamentary group would be useful. Mr Narasimha Rao said India's position was clear. It favoured the maximum contact and exchange of views between parliamentarians but in the case of India and Pakistan there already existed the SAARC framework and the new provision whereby MPs of SAARC countries could travel within the region entirely freely and without visas. He suggested that for the time being such contacts were left to develop within that framework without the formation of a specific IPU Indo/Pakistan group.
The
3.
Mr Narasimha Rao then developed his comments on SAARC, saying that he did not agree with those who said it had achieved nothing but it had certainly not achieved enough. difficulties, as between India and Pakistan, lay not in the difficulty of making contact or arranging meetings, or even between personalities. He himself had had six meetings with Nawaz Sharif and there had been many meetings at official level. He had good personal relations with the Pakistan Prime Minister and had had another "almost incidental" meeting at Dhaka. This frequency of meetings between Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers was almost unprecedented. The trouble was that Mr Nawaz Sharif's hands were tied just as his own were. The difficulty lay in the nature of the problems rather than in the lack of personal contact or understanding. At Dhaka he had been able to speak to Nawaz Sharif as a "friend" and to say to him plainly that in the case of the Bombay bombings the trail leads to Pakistan and to ask him "what can you answer?". He reflected that the situation regarding the Babri Majid, Kashmir and the Bombay bombings would make it very difficult to make progress "for a few months" but repeated that there was no shortage of channels to meet or communicate.
4.
I asked if the reports that Nawaz Sharif had now suffered a significant loss of power in relation to the President of Pakistan might additionally complicate relations. The Prime Minister said it would not be proper for him to comment on the internal affairs of Pakistan but went on to say that in fact he knew the President and Benazir Bhutto well also. Contact would remain possible. If after that there were problems, "India has friends, like you".
5.
Sir Michael mentioned the draft Cooperation Agreement between the EC and India. The Prime Minister had to ask the note taker what this was and where things stood. She said there had been three meetings on the subject and it now rested
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