New Delhi
2 August 2009
President Pratibha Devisingh Patil's visit to Tajikistan in September is expected
to pave the way for a more robust Indian engagement of the central Asian republic and
establishment of a solid economic foundation for strengthening the convergence of
mutual interests between the two countries.
Her visit will be largely symbolic, as most Indian Presidential visits are, but it will serve
to maintain bilateral ties on an even keel and to dispel any inertia that might have crept
into the relationship since the 2006 State visit to India by President Emomali Rahmon of
Tajikistan and then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to Dushanbe in 2003.
President Patil, whose visit to Dushanbe will likely be clubbed with her pre-scheduled
visit to Moscow next month, and her Tajik counterpart are no strangers to each other.
During President Rahmon's visit to Jaipur, he met with President Patil, who was then the
Governor of Rajasthan.
New Delhi, which is becoming acutely aware of the consequences of not arresting the
drift in its ties with Dushanbe, is expected to progressively focus on production-sharing
agreements in hydrocarbon and hydroelectricity sectors and take the lead in making
investments in the other sectors of the Tajik economy.
The visit will take place amid renewed anti-India propaganda by Pakistan: Already,
indications are that sections of the Pakistani establishment want to rake up the bogey of
Indian military presence in Tajikistan to deflect attention from its domestic squabbles
and to slither away from taking meaningful action against terrorists operating on its soil.
The renewed Pakistani focus on India's involvement in rebuilding and constructing the
Aini air base comes close on the heels of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's reference
to "threats in Balochistan" in the July 16 India - Pakistan Joint Statement, and
Islamabad's allegations that the Indian consulates in Afghanistan are fomenting unrest
inside Pakistan.
K Santhanam, a former director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and
Analyses (IDSA), dismissed the Pakistani insinuations as Goebbelsian propaganda and
not worth paying attention to. "Pakistan is desperate ... it is clutching at straws," he said.
Air Commodore Jasjit Singh (Retd), another former director of IDSA, described the
rhetoric about Indian involvement in Tajikistan as "fantasies of the (Pakistani) elite".
Incidentally, in a damning report published Sunday, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
British Parliament expressed concern that elements within Pakistani Army and
intelligence services did not share their civilian government's resolve to fight Islamic
terrorists.
The Committee also said that whereas Pakistani President Zardari had pointed to
terrorism as the main enemy of his country, "large parts of the security establishment"
of Pakistan continue to be fixated on India.
The report welcomed Zardari's recent remarks that he regards terrorism rather than India
the real threat to his country.
"However, we further conclude that doubts remain as to whether the underlying
fundamentals of Pakistani security policy have changed sufficiently to realise the goals
of long-term security and stability in Afghanistan," it added.
No comments:
Post a Comment