New Delhi
21 July 2009
In a rare admission, a top Indian diplomat has said the July 16 India -- Pakistan
Joint Statement could have been a victim of bad drafting.
"... one can argue how good or bad the drafting was ... you can say it is bad drafting, but
the meaning is clear," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said here Tuesday.
He was interacting with Members of Parliament after delivering a lecture about India's
foreign policy challenges.
The Joint Statement was issued after the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and his Pakistani counterpart at Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, on the margins of the
15th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit.
The Opposition BJP and a section of former Indian diplomats have criticised the
Government for making more concessions for Pakistan in the Joint Statement in return
for modest gains.
Menon said India's attempt with Pakistan has been three-fold, one of which was to "bring
it back to the fundamental issue of terrorism".
"Our intent is clear. We are not going to budge (on the issue of terrorism)," he said,
responding to the criticism that delinking of action on terrorism from the composite
dialogue process was avoidable.
Menon said the Prime Minister had made it clear that the dialogue could not go forward
unless Pakistan took credible action to dismantle terror infrastructure and stop Pakistani
soil from being used for terror acts against India.
"We said no, and made it quite clear that the issue is terrorism and we are not going to
start any composite dialogue without that," Menon said by way of explanation.
India had also conveyed to Pakistan that just because there was no composite dialogue,
they could not stop action against terror.
On the inclusion of Balochistan in the joint communique, Menon said, "Pakistan has
been saying this for long. We said we have nothing to hide."
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