Making Success Fail
By A. G. Noorani
The best course before India and Pakistan is to revive the jettisoned accord now by making a joint announcement to hold talks on the issues which were agreed on July 15.
THE India-Pakistan foreign ministers’ meeting on July 15 raises six questions. What was its main purpose? How did they try to fulfil it? What derailed a meeting which nearly succeeded? What impact did Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai have? And also the press conference? Finally, how do we proceed from here to fulfil the remit which Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani gave the foreign ministers at Thimpu on April 29?
No joint statement was issued but Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s statement on April 29 and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s the next day shed ample light. He said, “There has been a trust deficit and we have to bridge it. It can be done through CBMS [confidence-building measures]. It will not happen in a day. It is a process.” Also, “We have Kashmir, Sir Creek, Siachen, water dispute, trade relations and terrorism as the major issues” to discuss.
Ms Rao said that the prime ministers “focused on the renewal of dialogue” to “restore trust and confidence” and “the searchlight is on the future and not on the past”. She revealed that Dr Manmohan Singh had, indeed, expressed his concerns about Lashkar-iTaiba founder Hafiz Saeed, the slow progress in the trials in Pakistan of the Mumbai cases, and the increase in infiltrations across the Line of Control (LoC). She said “all issues of concern will be discussed”. Both agreed that the dialogue mattered, not its “nomenclature”.
If the prime ministers raised the dialogue to the political level (the foreign ministers’), it was because they wished to proceed with a political dialogue on the pending issues without minimising the Mumbai blasts issue. Defining India’s policy, on June 13, Ms Rao mentioned “one dilemma. How do we deal with the persistent threat of terrorism” and urged Pakistan to “act effectively” against the terrorist groups. She spoke of the political dialogue as well. “We also have to reaffirm the progress made…in the composite dialogue or back-channel diplomacy.” In Islamabad on June 24, she said, “We must avoid stock phrases like ‘road map’.” At the “joint press stakeout” both sides were optimistic.
On June 26, Home Minister P.C. Chidambaram went to Islamabad and was convinced that the Interior Minister Rehman Malik and he “understood the situation and agreed that we should address the situation with the seriousness it deserves”. Mr Malik assured the visitor that India would not be disappointed with his replies to its queries on terrorism.
Born with a foot in the mouth, on July 13 Home Secretary G.K. Pillai talked about the alleged ISI role in the Mumbai blasts. In Islamabad on July 14 the foreign minister, S.M. Krishna, said in a prepared statement “I look forward to receiving feedback on the issues raised by our home minister” — less than three weeks earlier. Referring to Headley’s disclosures he said: “We naturally expect a response from Pakistan. I am here to find out what that response is.” He repeated this in his opening state ment at the conference. His emphasis went beyond the Thimpu remit. The matter was under discussion between the home ministers. Pillai created a nasty ripple in the pond, Krishna muddied the waters somewhat; but not altogether. For, all the pending issues were discussed; significant accord was arrived at; yet differences remained. These, however, fouled the atmosphere. A joint press conference is held only if there is total or near total accord and there is a relaxed atmosphere. Neither condition existed. Even so, the foreign ministers nearly pulled it off. An unwise diversion on infiltrations triggered off ugly sparring at the press conference.
That should neither obscure the gains nor impede the process. Mr Qureshi said, “We had a discussion on all the issues that are of importance whether it is terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir, the recent developments in Jammu & Kashmir, Sir Creek and Siachen.” He said that the progress made in the last four years should not be brought to “naught”. This confirmation of the progress in the back-channel is no small gain. He looked forward to India’s written proposal on Sir Creek which had been made verbally earlier. He assured Mr Krishna that Pakistan would “very seriously” take steps on the leads provided on the Headley interrogations and take steps to hasten the trial of the Mumbai blast cases. “We have made progress on Kashmir-related CBMs.” At his press conference the next day Mr Qureshi admitted that they had “reached agreement on many issues”. He remarked, “It is the nature of IndiaPakistan talks that whenever there is progress there is always a last-minute hitch. There was no hitch from Pakistan’s side.” The claim is not valid. He was impatient and that was reflected in his rude reference to directions from New Delhi. You don’t say that if you are to meet again. He shed the patience he had advised at Thimpu.
There lay the rub. They had agreed to meet in December. Officials had successfully drawn up a ‘calendar’ of dates for talks on all issues by designated secretaries, till December — water resour ces, trade, Sir Creek, visas, cross-LoC trade, exchange of prisoners, release of fishermen, enhancing people-to-people contact and visits by MPs. The foreign ministers were to review progress in these talks in December. Mr Qureshi insisted on including Kashmir and Siachen in the calendar for “substantive talks”. India agreed to do so “at an appropriate time”. The talks broke down on this fatuity, brilliantly described by Mr Iqbal A. Akhund in his Memoirs of a Bystander. Indians and Pakistanis revel in cleverly playing a game of words; “all the more so because they play it in a foreign language”.
The matter could have been resolved simply by agreeing to hold talks on them in December dropping both “substantive” and “at an appropriate moment”.
The best guarantee of accord is not a calendar of talks but generation of what lawyers call a “negotiating frame of mind.” On July 20 Mr Krishna said, “I have invited Foreign Minister Qureshi to visit India in the later part of the year so that we can take it up from where we left in Islamabad.” On July 22 he paid warm personal tributes to Mr Qureshi who said on July 21 that he was prepared to walk the “proverbial extra mile”. The best course is to revive the jettisoned accord. That can be done now by a joint announcement to hold talks on the issues which were agreed on July 15. Why wait till December? ¦ The writer is an author and a lawyer.
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