In a speech to India's parliament last week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that "it is in our vital interest to try again to make peace with Pakistan" and urged Pakistan to take "strong, effective and sustained action" to prevent the use of its territory for terror.
"If the leaders of Pakistan have the courage, the determination and the statesmanship to take this road to peace, I wish to assure them that we will meet them more than half way,"
Singh said at the time. This was when Singh was scheduled to attend the summit meeting to be held by Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains during the week ahead in which Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was also expected to attend. The SCO is an organization of six countries, including Russia and China, established in 2001 principally to promote cooperation between its members' governments on security related issues. Both India and Pakistan, , enjoy, along with Mongolia and Iran, observer status with the SCO.
More than 170 people died in the attacks in Mumbai last November
Given India’s genuine frustration over Pakistan’s frivolous response to India’s demand for taking critical action against terrorists from Pakistani soil operating in India, particularly the perpetrators of 26/11 Mumbai attack, the statement contained the hidden punch- line that Pakistan singularly lacked the three mentioned qualities to “take the road to peace”. But the statement also contained a hint-line: that negotiation is also to start and take the road to the “promised land” of Composite Dialogue, of course “in our vital interest”.
We may wonder: why then the punch-line! That obviously was to serve as the hard box in which the soft Composite dialogue was to be delivered to USA. The box went all the way to Yekaterinburg where the package had to be delivered to the consignee; only it was made more “striking”. At a meeting on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, Prime Minister Manmohan Sing delivered the give- away at the very first handshake with President Asif Ali Zardari, witness all the media present.
The handshake by the way, had none of the drama of the handshake famously offered by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee when they met at a South Asian summit in Kathmandu in January 2002, while the two countries mobilized for war following an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001. Because, the fire and fervor of 26/11 Mumbai had already become faint in the glazed corridors of Ministry of External Affairs where the channel music of Nuclear Deal is streaming. Perhaps it did carry the warmth of a summit meeting between Vajpayee and then Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Lahore in 1999,
With that hard cover Manmohan Singh resounded:
“I am happy to meet you, but my mandate is to tell you that the territory of Pakistan must not be used for terrorism,” he told Zardari.
Zardari perhaps knew what the package contained. Only three days before the Russian summit, in an obvious preparatory visit in what seems to be a step taken by India to set the tone for a dialog with Pakistan, Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, Sharat Sabharwal had met Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik in Islamabad on Saturday, Jun 13. In a follow up while briefing the media about Manmohan Singh's visit to Russia for a summit, Foreign Secretary, Shivshankar Menon said that the Indian Prime Minister will meet Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. However, he made it clear that there would not be any structured meeting between the two leaders.
"They will be at the same place at the same time....They will meet, they will shake hands," said Menon. And when asked about what Singh and Zardari may discuss, he said "I don't want to guess what they will discuss."
Further, it was carefully let out to the so-called Indian analysts that while Singh will not agree to reopen formal peace talks until Pakistan took further action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba, India is likely to show its willingness to talk to Pakistan, provided this was focused on exchanging information on curbing terrorism. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Immediately downplayed Singh's remark and said the meeting itself was a positive development.
"I think the very fact that the two leaders are meeting at this summit for the first time since the tragic incident in Mumbai is positive, “he said.
The elaborate diplomatic artifice was necessary because when the government had been under considerable pressure to act tough and resist strong pressure exerted by USA to reduce tension with Pak so the latter can concentrate on tackling the Talibans and thus relieve the US forces from their imbroglio in Afghanistan, even talk of any talk with Pak will arouse suspicion as attempts to compromise with that country under US pressure.
In spite of all the ruses and subterfuges, the post-summit pronouncements emanating from official side only prove if anything that the misgivings have come home to roost as realities. They hold out the prospect of another meeting between Sing and Zardari (not withstanding reports that Zardari intends to back out and instead depute Prime Minister Gilani) at a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Egypt in July and said that senior officials would hold further talks to exchange information on terrorism. Semantics aside, that means the two countries are talking again after a deep crisis in relations following the Mumbai attacks, although India insists for record that it will not reopen the so-called composite dialogue peace process until Pakistan takes action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group it blames for the assault.
Sharing the same value system will not act as a glue to hold states together in the international politics. Until recently, India and the United States, due to their multifarious differences, were considered to be ‘estranged democracies’—but their recent agreement on civil nuclear technology has transformed their relationship, and made them ‘engaged democracies.’ The significance of the meeting will not be lost on US officials in Washington. Both countries are considered US allies but, whilst encouraging talks between the two countries, in particular the US does not wish to be seen applying undue pressure on India to meet and negotiate with their long standing adversary. The top US diplomat for South Asia, William Burns, visited the Indian capital New Delhi only last week and any statements he made whilst he was there were carefully analyzed for some indication as to the message he may have brought from the Obama administration for one or both of India and Pakistan. There is no need for any guess work now.
It is not mainly the tensions between India and Pakistan, both of them countries in possession of nuclear weapons that concern the West. Their proximity to and relationships with, more especially Pakistan, both Iran and Afghanistan can have an important bearing on the US strategy in the area.
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