Lahore, Dec 27 (PTI) Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri recalled fond memories of his association with the late Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who died in Delhi on Thursday night.
In an interview with PTI here on Friday, Kasuri said that Dr Singh will be remembered in history as a man who devoted himself to the improvement of bilateral relations between the two countries.
Kasuri, 83, who served as Pakistan’s foreign minister from November 2002 to November 2007, credited Singh for the creation of a congenial atmosphere in the entire SAARC region.
He said it was best exemplified by Singh’s statement that “he looked forward to the day when it would be possible to have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul”.
Kasuri said he was lucky to be a part of a process in which unprecedented progress was made during the peace negotiations between the two counties.
He said people-to-people contacts were enhanced tremendously during Singh’s tenure as prime minister resulting in the creation of mutual trust between the two governments.
Kasuri said it even enabled them to produce a blueprint of a possible framework for the solution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
He said that although the process had begun during the period when Pakistan’s then president Pervez Musharraf and India’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee led the two respective governments, there is absolutely no doubt that Dr Manmohan Singh put his heart and soul in carrying the process forward.
Kasuri recollected that Singh expressed his strong desire to visit his birthplace Gah, in Chakwal district of Punjab, Pakistan.
He said that he assured Singh that he would be accorded a warm welcome in Pakistan.
Kasuri hoped that one day it would be possible for the late prime minister’s wife Gursharan Kaur and other members of his family to visit Singh’s birthplace.
Kasuri also offered heartfelt condolences to his wife and other family members as well as the people of India.
Singh, the architect of India’s economic reforms, died in Delhi on Thursday night. He was 92. He is survived by his wife and three daughters. PTI MZ GSP GSP
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