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Will
India
and
Pakistan
make it to the negotiation table?
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By
IOL South Asia Correspondent
NEW
DELHI, October 29 (IslamOnline) - Egged on by the U.S. and E.U., India
and Pakistan have begun to tone down their fierce rhetoric and are
trying to establish official and unofficial contacts.
The
thaw has come following mutual withdrawal of troops from forward
positions by India and Pakistan. The thaw is also visible at the SAARC
(South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) meeting in Kathmandu
that began Monday, October 28. The atmosphere there is quite relaxed.
The
level of acrimony between India and Pakistan has come down considerably,
although it is yet to die down completely. Till last week there was some
doubt about India’s participation in the SAARC summit scheduled for
January next year in Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Recently
the Indian Foreign Ministry announced that Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee would participate in the SAARC summit but would not talk to
President Musharraf. Pakistan complained on Monday, October 28, that it
had not received any confirmation from New Delhi about the dates of the
summit.
In
the newly revived peace initiative, there is a considerable element of
Track-II, i.e., unofficial, diplomacy. Within the next few days
important government officials and policy pundits from Pakistan, India
and the United States would gather in Geneva to participate in a
workshop called “South Asian Security.”
The
Geneva meeting, organized by Pugwash Peace Foundation, would concentrate
on confidence-building measures and preventing a possible nuclear
conflict.
The
Kathmandu and Geneva conferences come following elections in the
Indian-administered Kashmir as well as in Pakistan. Although the two
sides cling to their old, clichéd positions, there are possibilities of
fruitful exchanges at a later stage.
The
Pakistani team for Geneva is already in place: Brigadier Naeem Salik,
additional secretary Aziz Khan from foreign office, Abdul Basit,
Pakistani representative to the UN, former chief of staff Jehangir
Karamat, former ambassador to Washington, Maliha Lodhi, former foreign
minister Abudus Sattar and former director of military intelligence, Lt.
Gen. Asad Durrani.
The
Indian team consists of former foreign secretary MK Rasgotra, former
principal secretary NN Vohra, Gen. Satish Nambiar, former director of
Institute of Strategic and Defense Analyses, Commodore Jasjit Singh.
It
seems India has, for a while, dropped its insistence on stopping
Pakistani “cross-border” terrorism before initiating some sort of a
dialogue with Pakistan.
As
America plans to move on to Iraq, it is leaving behind the unfinished
job largely to Pakistan to watch over. That somehow denies India a
larger role in the region, an aspiration about which India is not too
modest.
The
West, and willy-nilly the E.U., would like the India-Pakistan front is
to be quiet while the action goes on in Iraq. However, India resents
being pressured to accommodate Pakistan to suit Western interests.
Indian
leaders did not like to be reminded earlier this week by the Danish
Prime Minister during an India-E.U. summit to start a dialogue with
Pakistan. Denmark is presently the president of E.U.
However,
India may not mind such reminders coming from the United States.
