The Hindu : National : Sonia not to meet Kasuri

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Wednesday, Sep 08, 2004

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National

Sonia not to meet Kasuri

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 7. The visiting Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, will not meet the United Progressive Alliance chairperson, Sonia Gandhi. Mr. Kasuri, who visited Ajmer Sharif today, is scheduled to leave for home on Thursday.

Confirming that a request had been received from the Pakistani side for a meeting with Ms. Gandhi, South Block sources said that a considered decision had been taken not to accede to the request.

"It's a message to the Pakistani side that there is one centre of power in New Delhi and they have to deal with that centre of power alone," the sources told this correspondent. Considerable thought was given to the request and it was decided that no meeting should take place.

On May 25, soon after the UPA Government took power, the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, telephoned Ms. Gandhi and invited her to Pakistan. Though there had been some suggestions from New Delhi then that Ms. Gandhi would visit Pakistan, nothing has so far materialised.

The message to Pakistan comes at a time when Gen. Musharraf and the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, are scheduled to meet in the next couple of weeks on the sidelines of the United Nations' General Assembly in New York.

Though the Pakistan Prime Minister is constitutionally expected to wield total executive authority, the President and Chief of the Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf, is the person who continues to call the shots in Pakistan. Usually, it is the Pakistan Prime Minister who travels to New York and addresses the General Assembly, but since the ouster of Nawaz Sharif as Premier, Gen. Musharraf does the job.

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