'We have never raised the temperature with Pakistan'

Q&A: Pranab Mukherjee, Union External Affairs Minister

Terrorism, and not relations between India and Pakistan, is the key issue, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee tells Karan Thapar in an interview for CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate. The interview will be telecast on Sunday. Edited excerpts...

Suddenly, it seems India is surrounded by neighbours in turmoil. There is crisis in Pakistan and Bangladesh, civil war in Sri Lanka, political paralysis in Nepal. How concerned are you?
There are certain positive developments also. You are talking of Nepal, but sometime ago, elections to the Constituent Assembly took place. An organisation that believed in violence joined the national multi-party political system. Of course, there would be divergence of views in a democratic system. In Pakistan, an elected government came to power after a long army rule. In Sri Lanka, there is a fight between the LTTE and the armed forces. We are deeply concerned for the civilian Tamil population.

Let’s talk of these countries individually. You have said that Pakistan’s response to India’s dossier on terror is a positive development. The foreign secretary said it was a welcome step. Has this lessened the tension and reduced the temperature or does the sense of crisis remain unchanged?
We have never raised the temperature. This phrase, I think, was used by the British foreign secretary and I told him that “no, I have not raised the temperature”. But what we want is that the perpetrators of 26/11 be brought to justice and the infrastructure available to the terrorists in Pakistan dismantled.

Every time President Asif Ali Zardari makes comments, he speaks things that are re-assuring. Do you see him as a sincere man or is it rhetoric?
He is a nice man. He is a gentleman, (Prime Minister Yousuf Raza) Gilani is a gentleman. But this is not a question of personalities. The question is that the government has a responsibility. When we talk, we talk of the incumbent government.

So you see Zardari as a nice man, a gentleman you can do business with. Therefore, the onus is on him to prove that he will take the steps?
The onus is on the Pakistani authorities to dismantle the infrastructure available to the terrorists, to bring to justice the perpetrators of terrorism and to co-operate with India in achieving this objective. The relationship between India and Pakistan is not the issue at this point in time. The issue is how to fight terrorism.

Do you think Zardari is genuinely committed to fighting terrorism or do you think he is telling different things to different people because he is trying to buy time?
I would not like to comment on the system in Pakistan. But what I would like to say is that I believe in his sincerity because he himself is a victim of terror attacks. His wife Benazir Bhutto was a victim of a senseless and brutal terror attack.

You mean you believe in his sincerity?
I believe in his desire to fight terrorism. But at the same time, my belief is not adequate. It must be backed by the action taken by the government of Pakistan.

Recently, Richard Holbrooke (US special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan) repeated something that President Barack Obama has said quite frequently — that America would like to see some reduction in tension between India and Pakistan so that Pakistan can concentrate on its western border.
When we interacted with Holbrooke or any other official from the US, we made it clear that the issue was not the relationship between India and Pakistan. The issue is how to fight terrorism.

In his address to the American people, President Obama said he would stop tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas. Many people believe this could hit the IT industry in India.
We cannot find country-specific solutions to these kind of problems. The issue is that our IT industry will be affected by the meltdown and the financial crisis. Other parts of the world will also be affected. We have to address the problem.

Is this an issue you can take up at the World Trade Organisation because many people believe that what Obama intends to do is protectionist.
We are opposing protectionism, any form of protectionism, and not only here.