Pak-India poised to set peace agenda today

Foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet here on Thursday to explore ways of overcoming mistrust and returning to peace talks. But expectations for a breakthrough are low.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday to set off the phased process for re-engagement agreed between Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh during their meeting on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Bhutan.

Ms Rao, who is the most senior Indian official to visit Pakistan after the Nov 2008 Mumbai attacks, is due for a very intense session with Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir. The two will try to find common grounds for continuing the renewed contacts.

The meeting is preparatory to foreign ministers’ talks in Islamabad next month.

Although no agenda has been slated for the meeting, diplomatic sources said the two sides would table proposals for narrowing the distrust in the wake of the Mumbai attacks leading to suspension by India of the composite dialogue, which began in 2004.

The proposals from Islamabad, sources indicated, would focus on improving the human rights situation in occupied Kashmir, resolving water disputes, Siachen, Sir Creek, humanitarian issues, joint efforts for counter-terrorism, encouraging people-to-people contacts and firming up Kashmir-related confidence-building measures.

It is quite evident that expeditious prosecution of the alleged planners of the Mumbai attacks, being tried by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, will top a set of proposals brought by the Indian delegation.

The talks have been preceded by some positive signals from both New Delhi and Islamabad. While Pakistan’s parliamentary committee on national security has authorised the Foreign Office to take ‘difficult decisions’ to normalise ties with India, Ms Rao, in a recent statement, called for “creative solutions” on Kashmir and other disputes. The cordiality being expressed by both sides ahead of the talks has pleased Pakistani and Indian diplomats.

“We want to pick the process from where we left in 2008 -- during the fifth round of composite dialogue. We are looking forward with confidence to renewing this engagement, but are also mindful of the complexities,” a Pakistani diplomat said.

Sources said the situation was so unclear that the Foreign Office sent Director General of South Asia desk Afrasiab Hashmi, famed for face-reading, to receive the Indian foreign secretary at the airport. Later in the evening, the two sides used a reception hosted by Mr Salman Bashir to pre-judge each other before their formal interaction on Thursday.

Analysts fear that Islamabad’s inaction against Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and poor progress in the trial of Mumbai suspects could become a sticking point. Although the two issues had led to the failure of foreign secretaries’ meeting in Delhi in February, diplomatic observers said India would try to ensure that the renewed process continued and did not get stuck because of those matters.

Their optimism stemmed from India’s transformed position on relations with Pakistan. New Delhi, which till earlier this year stoutly held that no normalisation was possible until its terrorism-related concerns were adequately addressed, has now expressed its willingness to discuss all issues of concern.

In August last year, India had refused to send Nirupama Rao to Islamabad for talks despite an understanding between the two prime ministers in Sharm el Sheikh to de-link peace talks from progress on terrorism.

Although foreign secretaries and foreign ministers of the two countries met subsequently in October last year in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, no progress could be made because of Indian insistence that terrorism needed to be addressed first. India also avoided responding to a Pakistani roadmap for re-engagement.

But the situation changed this year after developments in Afghanistan. It is believed that the renewed international pressure and growing realisation in India that the rapidly changing situation in Afghanistan could deprive it of its strategic leverage in the region have forced it to change its mind regarding ties with Pakistan.

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