Sushma Swaraj blames Pervez Mushrraf for Agra summit failure

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday blamed former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf for failure of Agra summit as the latter wanted Kashmir as the ?core issue?.

Holding Musharraf responsible for the talks failure in 2001, Swaraj in her Twitter message said: ?The truth is that Musharraf wanted Kashmir as ‘core issue’ and no mention of ‘cross-border terrorism’ in the agreed statement. This was not acceptable to the political leadership then. This is not acceptable even today.?

The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Swaraj also sought to defend then-joint secretary in Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Vivek Katju, who was targeted by Musharraf as the one responsible for failure of the Agra summit.

?Musharraf is wrong to blame Vivek Katju (who is now Secretary, West) for failure of Agra talks. Katju was then Jt. Secy in MEA,? she tweeted.

Musharraf, in a recent television interview, had said that Katju had repeatedly intervened during the talks between the then visiting Pakistani President and then Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

?There was someone from the Foreign Ministry sitting there named Katju. He may still be there, he created a lot of hurdles,? Musharraf had said.

Musharraf and Vajpayee had met at Agra in July 2001 and held several rounds of one-to-one talks on bilateral issues, but the talks had failed to make any headway in improving Indo-Pak relations.