New Era for Pakistan, India Seen in Bhutto-Gandhi Talks

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —  Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and her Indian counterpart, Rajiv Gandhi, met Friday for historic talks expected to open a new page in relations between two nations that for 41 years have been deeply suspicious of each other and have fought three wars.

Both sides said the talks between Bhutto and Gandhi were the dawn of a new era.

Indian officials, however, were notably more optimistic about how quickly relations would improve between two countries that have gone to war three times since independence from Britain in 1947.

“I think you will find that we will move things forward in these two days more than we have in the past 11 years,” said a senior official accompanying Gandhi on the first working visit to Pakistan by an Indian prime minister in 28 years.

He was referring to the 11-year rule of Pakistan’s military president, Zia ul-Haq, whose death in a mysterious air crash in Pakistan last Aug. 17 was followed by democratic elections in November that brought Bhutto to office on Dec. 2.

But Pakistani officials said Bhutto, the first female to lead a modern Muslim nation, faces domestic constraints that prevent her from moving too quickly to improve ties.

“Within those constraints, she can move, but not too quickly,” a senior Pakistan official said.

“She has only been in office for a month,” another official said, “and not all the facts (about relations with India) are in her hands. So she doesn’t want to do anything too hastily.”

Bhutto and Gandhi’s first private meeting began at 9 p.m. Thursday and lasted until 1:30 a.m., Indian sources said. The only other people present were Bhutto’s husband, businessman Asif Ali Zardari, and Gandhi’s Italian-born wife, Sonia.

Asian Regional Summit

Friday, the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers attended an all-day session with the leaders of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives as part of the fourth annual summit of the South Asian Assn. for Regional Cooperation.

Gandhi and Bhutto then met again for more than two hours. They were joined midway through the meeting by their foreign ministers, P.V. Narasimha Rao of India and Sahabzada Yaqub Khan of Pakistan.

The talks “covered the whole gamut” of problems between the nations, including disputes in Kashmir and Punjab, an Indian official said.