THE INDIAN EXPRESS

APLN member C Raja Mohan writes on Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s visit to India. Read the original article here.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s visit to India this weekis bound to generate much media interest but will make little dent in the indifferent relations between the two countries. Any meaningful change in bilateral relations must necessarily wait until Pakistan has a domestic consensus on foreign policy.

The vocal opposition in Islamabad to Bilawal’s visit – the first by its foreign minister to India in more than a decade — underlines Pakistan’s sharp internal divisions about its external relations at a critical juncture in world politics. Although Bhutto is arriving here to participate in the deliberations of a multilateral organisation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which is led by Pakistan’s close partner China, the very act of visiting India is seen as a sacrilege by the ideologues in Islamabad.