'We can do surgical strikes in Pak, but have no courage to talk to them': Mani Shankar Aiyar

New Delhi, Aug 23 (IANS) Former diplomat, MP and veteran Congressman Mani Shankar Aiyar has said that India has the capability to do surgical strikes inside Pakistan, but the country's leadership doesn't have the courage to sit down and talk to settle issues with Pakistan.

"The Pakistani people are not our enemy. It is the Pakistan government which does things inimical to us. The question is, do we have the courage to talk to them?" Aiyar said at the release of the first of the three volumes of his memoirs.

Aiyar said the majority of the officials at the Indian Foreign Office are completely wrong about Pakistan. "Our officials are very good in dealing with Paraguay, but wrong on Pakistan. They will go out of the way to do things for a distant country like Paraguay, but will not do it for Pakistan, which should have been our priority," Aiyar said after the release of 'Memoirs of a Maverick: The First Fifty Years (1941 - 1991)', published by Juggernaut Books.

He said we are completely wrong about Pakistan, although we have brilliant minds and hard- working people in the Foreign Office.

"Pakistan has a brilliant diplomatic corps. Had Partition not happened, I am afraid I may not have done well in my diplomatic career. Pakistan diplomats are utterly brilliant," Aiyar said to an audience that included former Vice President of India Hamid Ansari, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former RAW chief A.S. Dulat

Elaborating on India's troubled relations with Pakistan, Aiyar said our neighbour had been made "a dog whistle in present-day India only to keep Muslims in check". He said: "Why do we always ask all Khans -- Salman, Shah Rukh and Aamir -- to go to Pakistan? Why not to Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia or any other Middle Eastern country? Pakistan is no longer a foreign office issue for us. We have completely made it a domestic issue now."

He added: "When we do not know how to tackle Pakistan and how to bring peace in our region, how can we boast about bringing an end to the Ukraine and Russia war?"

Former Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who gave the opening talk, said that the first volume is charming and witty just like Mani Shankar Aiyar. "When I went to Pakistan in 2001," he recalled, "that was after 21-years Mani had been there, and the first thing that Pakistanis inquired about was Mani. They only asked about him, such was the aura he left behind in Pakistan."

Menon said that Rajiv Gandhi's Prime Minister Office (PMO) reflected India's many verities and Aiyar one among them. He noted that Aiyar was very serious during his career and his courage to leave the Foreign Service and join politics speaks volumes about his courage.

Talking about the late Rajiv Gandhi, Aiyar said he was an honest, upright and good, and not a devious person. "Rajiv's faults were his virtues. He has always put the nation first. He brought peace to many states during his tenure. He was a great statesman," he pointed out.

He said that at the time Rajiv took over as prime minister, Mizoram was violent. "The peace we see in Mizoram today is all because of the efforts of Rajiv Gandhi," he said.

He said that the blunder which Rajiv Gandhi committed was to bring back R.K. Dhawan to the PMO. "For the first four years, Rajiv's PMO was all technical. After Dhawan was inducted everything started to go wayward for the prime minister as well for the PMO," Aiyar noted.

Thanking Sonia Gandhi, Aiyar said she has always been a support for him.

"Sonia has always been there for me," he stressed. "She has always stood for me. When Rajiv was assassinated, most wanted me out, but Sonia stood for me. It was only because of her that I was back in the party and only because of her I was made a cabinet minister."

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