AA Summit is serious business for Musharraf

Ivy Susanti and Endy M. Bayuni, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

On a clear Thursday evening, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and a number of Indonesian journalists sat together in a suite in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Central Jakarta, where the president spoke on various issues concerning the summit and Pakistan's relations with Indonesia and neighbors India and China.

He started his official visit to Indonesia -- his first since becoming President in 2001 -- by paying a courtesy call on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Thursday morning.

After touring Jakarta for a while -- including paying a visit to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (a popular local theme park) in East Jakarta, and inaugurating the construction of a new embassy in Mega Kuningan in South Jakarta -- he said he could see that Indonesian had made great developmental strides.

"One can see development; one can see movement ahead. One can see a lot of construction going on. Those are signs of development, signs of progress and prosperity. And the cars I saw were very good. I think that is the sign that indicates prosperity," said the 61- year-old grandfather of three.

The following are excerpts from the interview.

Question: Could you tell us the outcome of the meeting with Susilo and those aspects of the meeting that you would like to highlight?

Answer: We reiterated our strong political bonds. We both agreed that these bonds need to be cemented through commercial, trade and Islamic bonds, because that is the real cement in this century of geo-economics, which are commercial, trade and political bonds.

We have decided we need to look into areas where we can enhance our trade and commercial ties. Within the commercial ties, we discussed defense equipment, training and collaborating, and we looked at areas of mutual interest in defense equipment.

Then we discussed this scourge of terrorism in which we need to coordinate and cooperate, and intelligence is one of the areas where we need to cooperate, to have a common stand which can assist in attacking terrorism. I do understand that in fighting terrorism, the real weapon is intelligence, more than operations. That's why we decided to cooperate in that area also.

When talking about trade and commercial ties, we agreed to encourage the private sector. Governments facilitate and the private sector is the main engine that will drive the process and in this we should institutionalize arrangements, like having a joint business council, meetings of the private sectors.

Speaking about defense equipment, does this mean that Pakistan is offering to sell arms to Indonesia?

We need to look into whether there is a mutuality, a commonality, in defense production. We haven't decided who sells to whom, but, yes, indeed, I did say that Pakistan's defense industry is very developed and we would like to show what we already have.

Did you discuss any specific measures as regards cooperating against terrorism?

Not about the possibility of cooperating in operations against terrorists. I'm sure the forces in each country can deal with it in the manner that's best. But the more important thing is cooperating on intelligence so that we can locate individual terrorists and act against them.

What is the relevance of the Bandung Principles in relation to Pakistani foreign policy?

This conference identifies areas of cooperation, in the political, socio-cultural and economic spheres. I think all these areas are of interest to Pakistan and they are very relevant to this world.

It is a fact that one of the things impeding the development of Asian and African nations is sustained infighting and political rivalry between them. How do you consolidate the ideal of cooperation under the spirit of Bandung with the practical realities of geopolitics?

In such a large forum there will be political differences. But I think this forum does contribute to some degree of normalization, some degree of improvement in relations. Otherwise, of course, there are other mechanism that can help to resolve all these political disputes. The Bandung conference doesn't have a mechanism for conflict resolution as such.

What lies ahead in the relationship between India and Pakistan?

I look at it very optimistically. A major step has been taken in the normalization of relations. We, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and myself, have resolved that we must solve our dispute in an amicable manner, we must build on the confidence-building measures that we have already been initiated, in a spirit of sincerity and flexibility and boldness because there are extremists on both sides that want to delay the process.

With regard to the resumption of bus services between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, do you believe that such projects should be encouraged further as a backup to the official government negotiations?

Yes, They need to be encouraged. In fact we have even proposed new routes to be explored, a truck service to be initiated to facilitate trade and even increasing the frequency of the services. These are the areas we will look into in the future.

How do you view the recent China-India roadmap to building a new "bridge of friendship" and other agreements concerning such things as border issues and trade?

This world is moving towards economic and commercial bonds and relations. There are economic and commercial interests of every country. Pakistan has trade relations with China. I know that the Chinese rapprochement enhances commercial ties and their bonds with India, but this does not affect Pakistan-China relations.

We don't want to base our relationship on individual relationship with other countries. We look at our own bilateral interests, and I don't think there is any difference in the bilateral interests between China and Pakistan, as our relationship with China will carry on from strength to strength, irrespective of the Chinese contact with India.