LAHORE, May 17: The Punjab PPP-SB president and a strong advocate of good friendly relations between Pakistan and India, Dr Mubashir Hasan, proposed on Monday that President Pervez Musharraf should seek a meeting with the new Indian prime minister to explain to her Pakistan's point of view on various issues on which India's ministry of external affairs was not fully aware, specially the verbal understanding between Musharraf and Vajpayee at their Jan 6 meeting in Islamabad.

Talking to reporters here on his return from a 10-day visit to India, he said a meeting between the two leaders was more important and must be held even if talks already scheduled between officials of various tiers had to be delayed for some time.

What the 6th January joint statement issued after a meeting the two leaders had stated was only the tip of the understanding reached between the two heads. "Gen Musharraf had gone much out of his way to agree to the document, on the basis of the understanding given verbally by Mr Vajpayee, in whom he had placed trust. Similar was the case with Mr Vajpayee, who believed in what the Pakistani general had promised".

Disagreeing with the general assessment that relations between the two nuclear powers might be tense during the Congress rule, Dr Hasan said the parties with which the Congress was going to form coalition were in favour of peaceful ties with Pakistan and their opinion would get weightage.

Dr Hasan said the meeting he was proposing between Gen Musharraf and Ms Sonia Gandhi "should not be for negotiations but merely to acquaint India of Pakistan's point of view".

He said it was a matter of great satisfaction that Gen Musharraf was endowed with 'extraordinary talent' to explain his point of view and it was because of this capability that he had convinced outgoing prime minister Vajpayee on various matters.

"India would need some time to digest Pakistan's side of the story", he said, implying that negotiations between the two countries would take some time to take off after the proposed Musharraf-Sonia meeting.

The PPP(SB) leader, who was finance minister when the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was in power, said Gen Musharraf might have to begin with Kargil should that be necessary.

"The prospects for the progress of the talks with the Sonia government will be better than they were with the Vajpayee government. Sonia's allies, Laloo Prasad Yadev, Mulayam Singh Yadev, Jyoti Babu, Deve Gowda's party, Shri Paswan and others are far better disposed towards permanent peace with Pakistan than were the allies of the BJP. The allies of the former government did not have a favourable view of peace with Pakistan".

Furthermore, Dr Hasan said, the support of the big business in India and Pakistan and of the peoples of the two countries for a durable rapprochement had never been greater. Dr Hasan said both the governments should take Kashmiris along to find a solution to the Kashmir dispute.

In response to a question, Dr Hasan said during the first 30 years after the partition there was consensus among the peoples of the two countries for confrontation.

But things began to change in the 80s. By 1995 when Narasimha Rao came to power, the forces of peace in both countries had gathered enough momentum to make the Vajpayee-Nawaz Sharif meeting possible.

Since then there have been ups and downs but the process has continued to move under the governments of Narasimha Rao, I.K., Gujral, Gowda and Vajpayee. "Hence, the analogy of the first 30 years is no longer applicable to the present situation", he said, expressing his optimism for a new chapter of peaceful relations between the two countries.