India and Pakistan:

Rebuilding trust

John Cherian in New Delhi

The official-level talks between India and Pakistan were focused on keeping the dialogue process between the two countries going. THE first official-level talks between India and Pakistan since the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008, in New Delhi in the last week of February, have received a cautious welcome.

Both sides have stressed that the talks were more focused on breaking the ice and keeping the dialogue process between the two countries going. Outstanding issues that have bedeviled bilateral relations were flagged during the talks.

As was expected, the Indian side put more emphasis on terrorism emanating from across the border. The Pakistani delegation was keener to shift attention to what it considers the ‘core issue’ in bilateral relations Kashmir and the looming dispute about the sharing of the Indus waters.

There was no joint press conference or for that matter a joint statement after the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries met, which highlighted the gulf existing between the countries.

After the talks, which lasted only three hours, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said the two sides had agreed to remain in touch, but no date was given for a follow-up meeting. She told the media in New Delhi that the ‘time is not ripe’ for the resumption of the composite dialogue that Islamabad and the international community were so keen on.

The Secretary-level talks, she said, were the ‘first step’ towards rebuilding trust between the two countries. Nirupama Rao said Pakistan’s cooperation in the investigations regarding the Mumbai terror attacks was not satisfactory from India’s point of view.

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir reiterated Islamabad’s position that the terror issue should not be allowed to derail the composite dialogue process.

He told the Pakistani media during his visit to New Delhi that his country wanted a ‘result-oriented and meaningful dialogue’. He said there was no need for Secretary-level talks ‘if India remains stuck to its stand on outstanding issues’.

After the resumption of the dialogue process in 2003, relations between the two countries improved considerably. Bilateral trade, for instance, went up to $2.24 billion. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put bilateral talks in deep freeze after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

He stated at that time that meaningful talks could only resume after Pakistan dismantled the terror infrastructure on its soil. The Indian government named the Lashkar-e-Taiba as the main organiser of the Mumbai carnage and has been accusing Pakistan of being indifferent to the core Indian concerns on the ‘terror issue’.

Terror-related dossiers

The Indian side presented three terror-related dossiers to the visiting Pakistani delegation. The dossiers demand more meaningful cooperation from Islamabad, including the handing over of those suspected by New Delhi of having played a role in the Mumbai attacks.

There is a specific demand for the handing over of Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda-linked militant who recently threatened to disrupt prestigious sporting events that India is to stage this year. He heads the 313 Brigade, whose stated goal is to ‘liberate’ Jammu and Kashmir.

Going by its track record, Islamabad is unlikely to hand over high-profile militants to foreign governments.

The Pakistani authorities have even refused to hand over to Afghanistan the recently arrested senior Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

This despite sustained pressure from the United States. The Americans want to talk to him in their interrogation cells in Kabul to get details about the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership and organisational structures inside Afghanistan.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram said in the first week of March that India was ‘very clear about the role’ of Hafiz Saeed, the chairman of the Jamaat-ud Dawa, in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

He emphasised that the evidence India had given to Pakistan about his activities should have made any responsible government take action.

The Pakistan Foreign Secretary had earlier told the media in New Delhi that the dossier provided by the Indian government on Saeed’s involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks was ‘literature, rather than evidence in a legal sense’. Bashir pointed out that Pakistani courts had not found any actionable evidence against Saeed and had freed him.

He added that Saeed did not speak on behalf of Pakistan and that the government had taken strong measures to counter terrorism, which, he said, was ‘a pressing priority for both the countries’.

The Pakistani side insists that it has been cooperating with New Delhi on the anti-terrorism front. Bashir said in New Delhi that both countries were facing a ‘common enemy’ and that Pakistan suffered ‘many hundreds of Mumbais’.

The Pakistan Foreign Secretary went on to add that it was ‘unrealistic and counterproductive’ to stall the dialogue process on the issue of terrorism. The terror groups, which had proliferated, ‘have no respect for borders, have no respect for ideologies and have to be exterminated’, he said.

An extra mile

During his recent official visit to Saudi Arabia, Manmohan Singh told the media that the international community should know that India was a victim of terrorism’.

He said though Pakistan had promised ‘unambiguously’ to prevent its territory from being used for terrorist activity, the progress on the ground was ‘virtually nil’. He emphasised that all the outstanding issues between the two countries could be resolved through dialogue only if Pakistan took ‘a more reasonable attitude in dealing with those terrorist elements who target our country’.

He had earlier told the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia, the Majlis-e-Shura, that India was prepared to walk ‘an extra mile’ to improve relations with Pakistan. ‘If Pakistan cooperates with India, there is no problem that we cannot resolve,’ Manmohan Singh said in his speech to the Majlis.

There is speculation that New Delhi is using backchannel diplomacy with the Saudis even as it is trying to fine-tune its policy towards Islamabad. Saudi Arabia’s influence on the Pakistani establishment, both political and military, is wide-ranging.

The Saudi government also has considerable clout in Afghanistan, both within the government and with sections of the Taliban. A few days after the India-Pakistan Secretary-level talks, a hotel in Kabul housing Indians was among many sites that were targeted by the Taliban. Nine Indians lost their lives. They included civilians as well as Army officers engaged in infrastructure projects and cultural activities.

The Taliban attack is being viewed as a reprisal against the ‘Marjah’ military offensive launched by the U.S. forces in February. A Taliban spokesman said the attack in Kabul was against the presence of foreign forces in the country.

There has been a spate of suicide attacks in other parts of Afghanistan in the last week of February.

The important role being played by India in Afghanistan is evidently not to the liking of the Taliban. Islamabad, too, has been complaining loudly about the growing Indian presence in a country it continues to view as its ‘strategic backyard’.

Whether New Delhi likes it or not, Afghanistan has become inextricably linked to the India-Pakistan dialogue.

Indian officials suspect the hand of the Taliban-Haqqani group and the LeT, both allegedly having links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in the latest Kabul attack. Islamabad alleges that New Delhi has been playing a role in destabilising Balochistan from its consulate close to the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Washington has let it be known that the India-Pakistan rivalry is proving detrimental to its ongoing military effort in Afghanistan. More alarming from New Delhi’s point of view is the Obama administration’s apparent willingness to talk to the ‘good’ Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Indian government has been forced to reassess the long-term scenario for the region and prepare for the possibility of a Taliban-dominated government coming back to power in Kabul.

There were reports that the Saudi government had already started talking to its friends in the Taliban on behalf of the Americans. Through the Saudis, the Indian government may be sending signals that it too is willing to do business with them.

The observation by Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor in Riyadh that Saudi Arabia could play a ‘valuable’ role as an ‘interlocutor’ in strengthening India-Pakistan ties triggered a media-generated controversy.

The junior Minister, who was part of the Prime Minister’s official delegation to Saudi Arabia, suggested that if Indian misgivings about Pakistan were conveyed through official Saudi channels, the chances of Islamabad taking them more seriously would be greater, given the Saudi government’s clout in the corridors of power in Pakistan.

The Prime Minister confirmed that he had asked the Saudi ruler, King Abdullah, to use his ‘good offices’ to convince Islamabad to end its support for terror outfits operating from its soil and targeting India.

The Hindu