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Journalism of Courage
The CPM slammed the government for “lowering the bar” on holding talks with Pakistan under US “pressure” leading to “glaring inconsistencies” in the two recent statements by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the matter.
Senior party leader Sitaram Yechury quoted the Prime Minister’s July 17 statement as saying that the “starting point of any meaningful dialogue” with Pakistan would depend on its actions to check terrorism against India emanating from its soil.
But on July 22,the Prime Minister “lowered the bar” by saying that “no full normalisation of relations” with Pakistan was possible till such measures were taken,Yechury said.
Yechury told reporters this meant that talks and bilateral engagement could continue even if no serious action was taken by Islamabad to stop terrorist activities directed against India.
“These significant changes,we feel,are being made under direct US pressure … Pressures are being mounted and the government is slowly but surely succumbing to them,” Yechury said.
The CPM leader also wondered why Congress was not pursuing the Rajiv Gandhi Plan,placed before the UN by the former Prime Minister in 1988,which envisaged a 25-year deadline for complete elimination of nuclear weapons globally.
