Pak keen on recognising Israel

''Accord recognition to Israel, and achieve some progress on Kashmir.''

This viewpoint seems to be gaining ground in Pakistan.

Quoting diplomatic sources and experts, the English-language daily The Muslim says that Pakistan suffered heavily vis-a-vis India since 1949 mainly because of its West Asia policy. Islamabad has been generally following a unidimensional and emotional foreign policy, the newspaper said.

Liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 and Pakistan's failure to muster enough support for moving a resolution on ''human rights violations in Kashmir'' in the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 1994 are all blamed on this policy.

A number of working papers on Israel and Kashmir are in circulation, according to sources. ''A government elected with more than a two-thirds majority is well within its legitimate right to take some major policy decision for the prosperity of the country,'' the newspaper writes.

A move towards recognising Israel started during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief's first tenure (1990 to 1993). The process continued during Benazir Bhutto's rule as well, it says.

The Muslim was told by sources close to the ministry of foreign affairs that an official working paper is being prepared by senior diplomats and strategic experts after weighing the pros and cons of according recognition to Israel.

The paper said last month that Pakistani officials, including Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan, had talks with American officials in New York on Israel and Kashmir. It was only after that that Washington agreed to revive military and economic assistance to Islamabad.

Advocates of Israeli recognition say that while Pakistan stuck to its sentimental policy of considering friends of West Asian Muslim countries as its own and their foes as its own foes, these countries never bothered to consult Islamabad before extending the hand of friendship towards Israel. China, too, did not consult Pakistan while having arms and missile trade with Israel.

UNI

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