New Delhi
19 February 2007
Neighbourhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner on Monday said she was "deeply
shocked" to hear about the deaths due to blasts on the Samjhauta Express. She insisted
that the India-Pakistan peace process should not suffer.
"I am deeply shocked," Ms Ferrero-Waldner told this newspaper in an interview. "I think
it has to be investigated very very carefully first before we really pronounce ourselves
but for us there is no alternative to go on with the reconciliation process. I think it is
highly important".
She added, "I think if you ask the population what they want in the end a great great
majority of the population they want to find solutions and therefore I think one has to go
on notwithstanding of course the outcome of these investigations because we still do not
know exactly what has happened."
"I really meant when I said I do praise India and Pakistan for that because it takes
political courage from both sides," Ferrero-Waldner said in response to a question.
On the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, Ms Ferrero-Waldner told this newspaper that the
issue was discussed "only in general" during her talks in New Delhi. "This should be
one of those questions that slowly has to be tackled and therefore I think all the
reconciliation measures, confidence-building measures that are there, are very
important. We from the international community and especially from the European Union,
we can only encourage both sides and we do, to go on with that, because there is no
military solution for that. There has to be a political solution. and this is what we think."
She also said that the issue of "free and fair" elections in Pakistan "will be very
important" for the European Union. "We know that there will be first presidential and then
parliamentary elections. Now let us see how the elections will be seen, we will certainly
send an exploratory mission and then we will decide also whether we might observe the
elections from the European Union or not. You know that longstanding wish of ours has
been of course that President Musharraf would also take away his uniform but I think it is
for us particularly now to look to the elections and see how free and fair they will be. It
will be very important for the population."
Ms Ferrero-Waldner indicated that the EU would want to send an observer for the
elections in Pakistan. She said, "[We will] first [send] an exploratory mission because
we also look into the preliminary conditions and if the conditions are being met and if we
think its is the right thing to do then I will decide on a chief observer, but I'm not yet
there. And then of course we have to have an invitation [from the Pakistan government]."
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