Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has said he wanted to walk out of the failed 2001 Agra summit but was dissuaded from doing so by a senior official.
His frustration, he told reporters in New York, stemmed from the fact that then Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had twice refused to include a reference to Kashmir in the joint declaration issued after the summit.
According to Mr. Musharraf, it was decided between him and Mr. Vajpayee that the joint declaration would say that Kashmir was a dispute between India and Pakistan and would be settled through political negotiations but the Indian Prime Minister backed out of it at the last moment.
A second draft of the joint declaration was prepared with some changes but Mr. Vajpayee backed out of that too, Mr. Musharraf said.
“I did not like it and wanted to leave right away but could not do so because of the advice of our Foreign Secretary,” The News quoted Mr. Musharraf as telling reporters in New York, where he is currently on a lecture tour.
“I also wanted to talk to the press about the issue but could not do so either as the press was not allowed to come to the hotel where I was staying and we were not allowed to go to the press due to security reasons,” the former President of Pakistan added.
