New Delhi
28 January 2011
Who is to be believed, Kasuri or Kayani? New Delhi will not be surprised if it
does not hear a satisfactory answer from Islamabad, but there is a view that clarity on
the question would come handy as India and Pakistan take tentative steps to unlock the
bilateral dialogue process in Bhutan, where foreign secretary Nirupama Rao will meet
her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir on the margins of a Saarc meeting on February
6 and 7.
Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has said in his recent visit to India that the Pakistan army was
on board the backchannel talks which took place on his watch as the foreign minister of
Pakistan between 2002 and 2007, and that considerable progress had been achieved on
contentious issues, including, but not limited to, Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen and Sir
Creek.
At the same time, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of Pakistan Army, has said as
recently as February 2010 that the army will remain "India-centric" until the issue of
Jammu and Kashmir and some other disputes are resolved.
By New Delhi's own admission, it is difficult to assess whether the Pakistan army
supports rapprochement with India. An official privy to India's engagement with Pakistan
says Kasuri is retired, suggesting that India and Pakistan are at a different stage in their
relations today, particularly post-Mumbai attacks. Moreover, it is not known how ready
the successor dispensation in Islamabad and General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi
is to discuss what was discussed in the backchannel.
That, and the anxiety to avoid a slanging match of the kind witnessed in February 2010
(during Bashir's visit to New Delhi) and in July 2010 (during external affairs minister SM
Krishna's visit to Islamabad), appear to weigh on New Delhi's mind as the official says
both sides could start with deliverables such as travel, trade and counter-terrorism.
New Delhi insists that the foreign secretaries' meeting in Bhutan should at best be
described as exploratory, and no dramatic announcements should be expected. For
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has invested political capital on dialogue with
Pakistan, the trajectory and outcomes of the Rao-Bashir and Krishna-Qureshi talks would
determine whether he can persist with his vision of peace and make the journey to
Pakistan.
No comments:
Post a Comment