Peace talks pick up pace as India, Pak skirt blocks

: India and Pakistan on Wednesday pressed ahead with their peace engagement, steering 

around contentious issues -- particularly Jammu and Kashmir and terrorism -- that bedevil their ties.


Erasing the scars of last July, when their foreign ministers clashed in full public view in Islamabad, India and Pakistan on Wednesday managed the rare feat of speaking in one voice. They agreed to invest in a relationship of "trust and mutually beneficial cooperation".


It wasn`t easy given differences over the usual stumbling blocks that cropped up during the meeting between foreign minister S M Krishna (78), and his young counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar (34), but the two sides worked around them successfully enough for foreign secretary Nirupama Rao to later declare that the "fog has now lifted'' over the relationship.


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Khar too raised hopes when she described the relationship as entering a new era and stated that the mindset of people in both the countries had changed, allowing ties to move in the right direction. In terms of deliverables, a number of CBMs to enhance cross-LoC trade and travel were announced.


"It is our desire to make the dialogue process uninterrupted and uninterruptible," Khar said after the meeting, summing up the determination to stay engaged. The restraint was evident at the press conference of the two foreign secretaries where neither rose to the bait of provocative questions.


Talks did not start on a very promising note though. The meeting started with Krishna strongly expressing displeasure to the Pakistani delegation over Khar`s meeting with separatist Hurriyat leaders on Tuesday evening ahead of the official talks.


Krishna wanted to know what was the locus standi of the Hurriyat as they were not representative of the people of India. He also took exception to the press statement Pakistan High Commission issued after the meeting with separatists.


Khar promptly assured Krishna that she did not intend to give offence to India.


The two sides did not let the issue overshadow talks even in public. Rao confirmed that India had expressed concern over the meeting and that it reflected divergences. "We have a different point of view from Pakistan on the meeting and we have expressed our concern frankly and candidly," she said. But she also emphasized that the neighbours had the political will to work together.


Rao`s counterpart Salman Bashir also spoke in a conciliatory vein. He said the meeting with Hurriyat should not be construed as an attempt to cast shadow over the talks, adding that Pakistan`s intention was to reach out in the interest of democratic polity.


Sources said the Pakistanis chose not to be prickly also when Krishna forcefully raised the lack of credible effort to punish the 26/11 masterminds, and continuing hate propaganda against India by the sorts of Lashkar chief Hafiz Saeed.


"We have made attempts to infuse the dialogue with the Thimphu spirit," Rao said referring to the meeting between PM Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani in Bhutan last year when they paved the way for re-engagement.


Krishna also raised the confessions made by Pakistani-American Lashkar operative David Headley during the trial of another accused Tahawwur Rana in Chicago about the role of ISI but the Pakistanis quickly assured that they would investigate the matter.


Terror and J&K were discussed at length and this manifested itself in the joint statement which called for eliminating terror in all its forms and, on J&K, spoke of finding a "peaceful solution by narrowing divergences and building convergences". They also agreed for a continued discussion on J&K in a purposeful and forward-looking manner.


Rao said there was "cautious optimism" in India-Pak relations. Krishna stated that things were "on the right track". The two foreign ministers decided to meet again in the first half of 2012. "This is indeed a new era of bilateral cooperation between the two countries, and it is our desire... to make it an uninterrupted and an uninterruptible process," Khar said.


"There has been a mindset change in the people of the two countries that we must acknowledge," she added. Khar showed remarkable maturity for her age when during the joint press briefing after the talks, she resisted all temptations to play to the gallery by mentioning the K-word even though it figured prominently in the joint statement.


Bashir too said after the talks that the two countries needed to make a conscious effort to be respectful to each other to maintain the momentum and ensure deeper level of engagement. "Either of us should not seek advantage over the other as we go for a deeper level of engagement. It is also not appropriate to read into what is said and what is not. We have to understand that this is a work in progress," said Bashir.


After the talks, when asked if the Hurriyat meeting was an attempt to establish "parallel" structures in the bilateral relationship, Rao said as far as India was concerned, there was only a "bilateral structure" between the two governments to address all issues. Hurriyat leaders had insisted before Khar in the meeting on Tuesday that Kashmiris too be made a part of the dialogue between India and Pakistan.

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Pakistan Leaders Must Make Choice After Clinton’s Warning: View

Illustration by Bloomberg View

By the Editors Jun 2, 2011 6:29 AM GMT+0600 0 Comments

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When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Pakistan last week, she noted that U.S.- Pakistani relations were at a turning point after the killing of Osama bin Laden. It was up to the Pakistanis, she said, to decide “what kind of country they wish to live in.”
The brutalized body of investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, which turned up outside of Islamabad on May 31, may provide a clue to the answer.
Shahzad disappeared after publishing the first of two promised articles linking elements of the Pakistan navy to al- Qaeda following a deadly May 22 attack on a Karachi naval station. Last fall, after being questioned about a different story by Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Shahzad wrote that he was threatened by the spy agency.
Alternatively, it could be that foul play like Shahzad’s murder will become a thing of the past in Pakistan. While in Islamabad May 27, Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen demanded authorities take “decisive steps” to crush the violent extremists the government has long supported, which would end the need to intimidate journalists who expose that support. Whichever way the Pakistan government goes, the May warnings by the U.S. ought to be the last.
The U.S. administration has continued to insist, as President Barack Obama did in a May 22 interview with the BBC, that the Pakistanis have “generally been significant and serious partners against the terrorist threat to the West.” This simply isn’t the case.

Victim, Sponsor

For much of the past decade, Pakistan has been both a victim and a sponsor of Islamic militants. Its soldiers are fighting bravely against homegrown terrorists seeking to install an Islamic government. In 20 attacks in May, these radicals killed some 150 people.
At the same time, the Pakistani army, led by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is a longstanding patron of violent groups targeting Afghanistan and India. Guided by excessive fear bordering on paranoia about India, Pakistan’s military and intelligence services believe that nurturing those extremists is an effective way to frustrate India’s regional ambitions. The ISI largely created and continues to support the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, the principal groups battling U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the fledgling government in Kabul. It also backs Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people.

Double-Dealing

President George W. Bush’s administration tried to end this double-dealing by giving Pakistan billions in economic and military assistance. Yet Bush didn’t make the aid contingent on a crackdown on extremists. The Pakistanis cooperated somewhat with U.S. efforts to dismantle al-Qaeda but refused to act against other groups, including the Afghan Taliban, which was given refuge inside Pakistan’s borders.
The Obama administration accelerated the failed Bush policy, substantially increasing military and economic assistance, again without imposing rigorous conditions. And Pakistan continued to ignore administration warnings about continued support for extremists.
In one incident reported by the Washington Post, Obama’s first national security adviser, James Jones, warned officials in Islamabad that there would be “consequences” if a terrorist attack directed at the U.S. was traced to Pakistan. Yet when a man who had trained at a terrorist camp in that country attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010, the U.S. administration did nothing. Shortly thereafter, Obama watered down Jones’s words, telling Kayani that a “successful” attack would have consequences.

Meaning Business

So when U.S. authorities learned that Osama bin Laden might be housed in a villa in a Pakistani garrison town, they dispatched Navy Seals to capture or kill him without so much as notifying the Pakistanis in advance. The raid provoked great outrage from officials in Pakistan. Since then, emotions have cooled. Clinton and Mullen have delivered their warnings, public and private. And this time, the Americans may mean business.
Will the Pakistanis respond?
Shahzad’s murder is a bad sign. On the other hand, reports from Pakistani tribal leaders suggest that the Pakistani army may be preparing a serious campaign in North Waziristan, where the leaders of the Haqqani Network and other extremist groups live.
It will soon be clear whether Clinton’s latest message got through. If not, the administration must consider new ways to persuade Pakistan to change course, recognizing that the country is behaving more like an adversary than a partner

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