Peace not on Musharraf Agra agenda: Advani

Writing in his blog on Sunday,Advani said Bhutto had visited him shortly before Musharraf landed in India. I sharply remember her pertinent comments as to what was motivating General Musharraf to respond to Indias invitation even after having failed in his Kargil plans. Your government,she (Bhutto) said to me,must understand that he isnt coming to Agra for peace. He is coming for politics. He aspires to become a civilian President and hopes he shall be able to accomplish that by procuring Kashmir for Pakistan with Washingtons cooperation,something that no other Pakistani leader has been able to achieve, Advani wrote.

Advani reproduced passages from his autobiography,My Country,My Life,about his conversations with Musharraf during the 2001 visit.

Advani recalled that when he broached the issue of extradition of Dawood Ibrahim,the prime accused in the 1993 Mumbai bombings,Musharrafs face suddenly turned red and unfriendly and he replied assertively that Dawood is not in Pakistan.

He also claimed that a Pakistani official who was at the meeting later told him that what Musharraf had said on that day was a white lie. It was the same kind of lie, Advani wrote,that the Pakistanis have been feeding to Americans all these years about Osama.

Referring to media reports that the Abbottabad building in which Osama bin Laden lived and died was constructed in 2005,Advani said:it would thus be reasonable to believe that the decision was taken when Musharraf was in total command of the situation in that country.