India and Pakistan talk again(Article)

LONDON - India and Pakistan are to face each other again, but good thing is that this time they are facing each other across the table. They have faced each other in various fields since 1947, including in the battlefield. Hitherto no confrontation or bilateral dialogue has produced the desired results.

They are once again around the table and this is good. But question is; are they meeting because they want to resolve all the outstanding issues or they have internal and external pressure to sit down, even if that means sitting for the sake of it?

Some weeks ago there was no sign of this kind of meeting. So what has changed the minds? Is it the war next door in Afghanistan and issues and pressures related to that which is forcing both governments to sit down and talk? What are they going to talk anyway?

The statements coming from New Delhi and Islamabad indicate that they want to talk on different issues; and there appears to be no agreement on what they want to talk.

In other words the agenda of talks doesn’t seem to be clear, as it should be. Focus of India would be to talk on issues related to ‘terrorism’ and may be other bilateral issues.

India’s External Affairs Minister S M Krishna recently said: “Let’s be very, very clear, that the composite talks you [the interviewer] referred to are suspended. Composite dialogue is not being renewed. The brief to the Foreign Secretary is that terror would be the focal point of the talks”.akistan, on the other hand, insisted that all issues should be part of the talks, including Kashmir dispute and issue of water; but later on they changed their mind and Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir in his press briefing said: “It is important that there are no pre-conditions from either side. Pakistan strongly believes that with pre-conditions there can be no dialogue.”

Pakistan has a long history of issuing statements for the consumption of Pakistanis and Kashmiris - they claimed Kashmir was their priority in talks even when in the past, the name of Kashmir was not included in the joint communiqui. Completely contrary to what was agreed in the joint communiqui they would issue a statement that Kashmir was the core issue and that they would not budge.

In line with their past practise, the next day a statement was issued for the consumption of the Pakistanis and Kashmiris that there was no point having talks if Kashmir dispute and issue of water was not on the agenda. The statement emphasised that Kashmir must be part of the talks.espite a bomb blast in Pune, once again linking Islamic militants, India has decided to go ahead with the talks. Some Indian politicians questioned for how long the people of India would continue to get killed and India agreeing to hold talks with Pakistan.

But that doesn’t mean the new peace process will produce any tangible results. It will be business as usual — sit down, exchange of views, photo session and possibly a joint communiqui to say that they will continue to talk. There will be no agreement on anything as still there is a big gap in perception on different things. For example, many people in the Pakistani government still regard militancy in Jammu and Kashmir as a ‘Jihad’; and it becomes ‘terrorism’ only when bomb blasts take place inside Pakistan or in Pakistani Administered Kashmir.

And if America wins the war in Afghanistan or the Talibans have upper hand, then unfortunately Jammu and Kashmir will experience a new and battle hardened Jihadi groups entering Kashmir. They first time entered Kashmir on October 22, 1947 and caused havoc; and we continue to suffer to date. By Dr. Shabir Choudhry(ANI)