New Delhi
18 January 2006
India on Wednesday came out of the "substantive
dialogue" on Jammu and Kashmir telling Pakistan that it would become
difficult to take the bilateral peace process forward if cross-border terrorism
was not seriously addressed. Pakistan, for its part, maintained that
confidence-building measures were not enough and concrete issues need to
be addressed.
Notwithstanding their different points of view, both sides reaffirmed their
commitment to move forward the peace process in a meaningful way during
the third round of the composite dialogue process. Also, they agreed to start a
bus service between Poonch and Rawalakot and a truck service on
Muzaffarabad-Srinagar route for trade in permitted goods, according to the
joint statement issued.
After conclusion of delegation-level talks with his Pakistani counterpart,
Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said he conveyed "friendly and frankly" New
Delhi's concerns about terrorism. "Pakistan is not doing enough [to curb
terrorism.] Terrorism cannot be bargaining chip. The infrastructure continues
to exist. It should not hang like a question mark over the peace process," he
said.
At a separate news conference, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad
Khan sidestepped the issue of terrorism and terrorist outfits saying Pakistan
was part of the international community against terrorism. He went on to say:
"We may not be as satisfied with the pace [of talks.] CBMs by themselves do
not present a rosy picture. We must not learn to live with the problem."
"We must not attend to symptoms alone, we must attend to the malaise [too.]
There are challenges ahead and we must address concrete issues," Mr Khan
said. India's vision, as articulated by Mr Saran, was that the CBMs were an
integral part of the process of finding a final settlement within the "political
limitations" on both sides. Let there be celebration of cultural affinity, he was
to say later.
Foreign Secretary Saran said Pakistan did raise the issue of self-governance
and demilitarisation. Both sides also exchanged views on Siachen. While
India had an "open mind" on certain issues, Mr Saran reiterated New Delhi's
position that there could be no redrawing of boundaries and no territorial
adjustment and also conveyed India's "more ambitious" proposal of thinning
the deployment of armed forces at the border.
"Why limit it to the Line of Control, we would like to see as thin a deployment
as possible at the border too," Mr Saran said. He said India received from
Pakistan a document setting out an understanding on inadvertent crossing of
LoC and border, prevention of incident at sea and agreement on navigation of
vessels and aircraft. "India is looking at those proposals," he observed.
In return, India gave some "fresh ideas" to Pakistan like an understanding on
averting a nuclear accident, operationalising a bus service between Kargil
and Skardu and also between Jammu and Sialkot. Also proposed was
operationalising of at least two of five meeting points at the LoC and
developing "enclosures" on the LoC for people from either side to cross and
meet.
The two countries have also reached a broad understanding on the dates for
the technical- and expert-level meetings which will take place till July besides
agreeing to initial a memorandum of understanding on narcotics, amending
the 1975 shipping protocol and allowing consular access to prisoners and
exchanging them at an early date.
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