Pak sees Modi's approach to bilateral issues as positive

Notwithstanding his criticism of the Congress-led government’s soft policy on Pakistan, Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s latest remarks have encouraged Islamabad to hope for a quick resumption of bilateral engagement with New Delhi if he takes over the top office after the current Lok Sabha elections in India.

“His (Modi’s) response to a question about Pakistan was very positive and that gives us hope that positive things will come... I am indeed encouraged,” Press Trust of India quoted the Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit, telling woman journalists in New Delhi on Wednesday.

He was referring to Modi’s remark during an interview with ABP News that if BJP came to power, his government would follow a ‘balanced’ foreign policy in which “no one should be able to intimidate us and neither should we do it”.

Modi, who has been critical of the United Progressive Alliance Government’s reaction to the anti-India terror emanating from Pakistan, also told the Marathi newspaper Loksatta that he would follow the foreign policies of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government headed by A B Vajpayee.

“I have seen all the statements and remarks (by his party and him) but the best statement came last night from the Prime Ministerial candidate and I feel much more encouraged,” the news-agency quoted Basit telling a group of journalists from the Indian Women Press Corps at the High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi.

He was responding to a question how Islamabad would like to react to the remark of BJP candidate in Nawada constituency in Bihar that all those who do not support Modi should go to Pakistan.

Modi in the past has criticized Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Government for not reacting strongly to the killing of two Indian soldiers by Pakistan Army personnel along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir in January 2013.