The Hindu : Deve Gowda backs Vajpayee's peace initiatives

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 01, 2004

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Deve Gowda backs Vajpayee's peace initiatives

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE, FEB. 29. The peace process with Pakistan should continue and Atal Bihari Vajpayee is doing what any Prime Minister would be doing at this juncture. Also, his foreign policy initiatives were apt, the former Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, said here today.

At a press conference, Mr. Deve Gowda said though he did not approve of the Prime Minister calling for the cooperation of Muslims. It displayed an element of doubt in the mind of Mr. Vajpayee about the integrity of the community towards the nation. Mr. Vajpayee was less a politician and more a statesman, but the deep-rooted fundamentalism in his party was forcing him to air such sentiments.

Mr. Gowda said Muslims were like other citizens of the nation, and in the long history of the country, they have also shown that they were Indians first and their religious affiliations came second.

Indian Muslims or other ordinary citizens of the country had nothing to do with the foreign policy initiatives taken by the Government. Ideology should not be involved while taking steps to improve relations with another country, but there should be concerns about national security, bilateral relations and international implications of such policy initiatives. But the National Democratic Alliance Government was trying to rope in some aspect of the ideology it keeps close to its chest.

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