By IANS
New Delhi : The volatility and instability in Pakistan have neither dented President Pervez Musharraf's influence and credibility nor affected the peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said.
"There is some progress. Progress has always been slow, it's incremental, but it has not stopped," Narayanan told CNN-IBN news channel in an interview telecast Sunday when asked to comment on the impression that the peace process between India and Pakistan has been in abeyance for the last four months.
"Yes, we could always argue it could go faster but the point is that it has not stopped," Narayanan told Karan Thapar in the interview.
There has been certainly no hiccup in the relationship, he stressed.
Narayanan underlined that although India was "concerned" about the volatility in Pakistan that was sparked four months ago by the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, it has not made a "major dent" in President Muhsarraf's influence and he remained very much a man India can do business with.
"I think the chief justice issue was something that could have snowballed but it didn't. He managed to rectify the situation, if I may say so, by going by the Supreme Court's verdict," Narayanan said.
"I think the very fact that the Pakistani president and establishment have accepted the verdict, with grace, if I might say so, has certainly contributed," he added.
Asked about his perception of the threat to India from Pakistan in the context of the shimmering instability in that country that was underlined by the standoff between the government and Lal Masjid clerics this month, Narayanan chose to see the brighter side and said it showed Pakistan was waking up to the problem of extremist forces being encouraged.
"I think the sort of volatility we are now seeing in Pakistan will encourage them (to cooperate). I think Pakistan is now beginning to recognise the danger of encouraging forces of this kind."
Significantly, Narayanan said that infiltration across the Line of Control that divides Jammu and Kashmir had "come down appreciably" after a spurt in April and added that infiltration through other sectors like Bangladesh and Nepal are far more serious although not enough attention is being paid to it.
Narayanan also chose to take a more positive view of the anti-terror institutional mechanism that was set up over 10 months ago between India and Pakistan amid much controversy and said that although the start was slow he was hopeful that by the second or third meeting it "will make some progress".
Â