Pakistan people don't regard us as enemy: Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar

Batting for resumption of dialogue with Pakistan, diplomat-turned-politician Mani Shankar Aiyar says India will not be able to take its due place in the world as long as its western neighbour is an "albatross around our necks''.

Batting for resumption of dialogue with Pakistan, diplomat-turned-politician Mani Shankar Aiyar says India will not be able to take its due place in the world as long as its western neighbour is an "albatross around our necks''.

Aiyar said the high point of his bureaucratic career was undoubtedly his stint as consul general in Pakistan and he has dwelt at very great length on his three years in Karachi in the first volume out now.

India's "biggest asset" in Pakistan were the people there who did not consider it an enemy country, he said.

"We were coming back from a dinner one day, within the first two-three weeks of the posting, when my wife Suneet asked me a question that reverberated in my mind in my stay in Karachi -- 'This is an enemy country, right’?"

Aiyar said he asked himself the question through his three years there and for the last 40 years since he came back from Pakistan.

“I have come to the conclusion that whatever may be the view of the sections of the army, or sections of polity, as far as the people of Pakistan are concerned, they are neither an enemy country nor do they regard India as an enemy country," he told PTI.