•You show disappointment with Gen Musharraf (on Agra) in your book. So, were you prepared, that he’s a general, he’s an unknown quantity, so let’s see what happens?

No, my first meeting with him indicated to me that he’s a difficult person so far as issues related to Indian interests are concerned. That was a conversation focused on doubt. You may recall that I had returned from Turkey and I opened my conversation with him, after the usual St Patrick’s High School and all that, with, ‘I have just come back from Turkey, and I understand that you spent your childhood in Turkey, and you can speak Turkish very fluently.’ He said, ‘Yes, that’s true, my father was posted there.’ And I said, ‘I’d like to tell you that I’d been to Turkey to sign an extradition treaty. Now, when I meet you, I start thinking what need have we for an extradition treaty with Turkey? But if an extradition treaty is needed, it is with you, with Pakistan.’ Then I added, ‘Tomorrow, of course, you’ll be discussing many things with the prime minister in Agra, but I, as a home minister, would suggest, why can’t we have an Indo-Pak extradition treaty?’ And his reply was, ‘Why not?’ He said that unguardedly, but the next sentence that I said, ‘That will mean that criminals hiding in the other country will have to be restored to the country they belong to. But I’ve also seen that countries that are friendly, those who do not want crimes to occur, even without extradition treaties, readily shift criminals to the other country.’ And I said, ‘I’d be very happy if you could hand over Dawood (Ibrahim Kaskar), who is responsible for the killing of so many in India.’ He was totally taken aback. And his first reaction was, in a way, an offensive remark. He said, ‘Mr Advani, this is small tactics.’ These are the words he used.

... contd.