Bhutto admits defeat on Kashmir policy

Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto has admitted that her ''hawkish policy on India'' has been rejected by the people in the recent elections and they have ''endorsed'' Nawaz Sharif's stance to open negotiations with India.

In her first interview after her Pakistan People's Party's defeat at the hustings, Bhutto told ANI Television in an interview that Sharif had ''made no secret of his desire to improve relations with India.''

Bhutto, in her candid interview to be telecast on Sunday, said, ''We had a more hawkish policy on India but he (Nawaz Sharif) is the one who has come up with a three-fourth majority. So obviously people have endorsed his stand to open negotiations with India and they have rejected our stand that unless India moves on the Kashmir dispute, there should be no talks.''

Bhutto said the successive prime ministers in Pakistan had been ''bullied'' by the president, the army, and the intelligence agencies, rendering them totally helpless.

While expressing her anger at the massive ''bungling'' in the ''unfair'' elections, she was ''happy that another person has become the prime minister who has the chance to define the powers of the country's chief executive and to make parliament the real political core or heart of the system.''

Berating the injustice done to her party, Bhutto said since 1977, four prime minister from Sindh have been dismissed and never restored.

She said there was one law for premiers from Lahore (Punjab) and another for those from Larkana (Sindh). ''If it is a Lahore prime minister, the president needs to be satisfied (before dismissal), but mere newspaper clipping were sufficient for removing a Larkana prime minister,'' Bhutto said.

The former prime minister said, ''Leghari has become redundant.'' On February 1, she said she had phoned one of Leghari's friends asking him to tell the president that while trying to oust her ''you (Leghari) are also losing.''

''This friend of yours (Leghari's) has lost. This other friend of yours has also lost, and this (yet another) friend of yours has also lost,'' Bhutto said with glee.

She said she was ''very happy that there is no hung parliament'' otherwise the president would have returned to his old tricks and given parliamentary system a bad name. ''Thank God it has not happened.''

UNI