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DIPLOMACY: PAKISTAN POLICY

Dialogue Dilemma

Post-Agra the Government remains unsure about how best to take Pakistan down the path of peace — and not let Kashmir come in the way

	BLOWING HOT
	"We will pick up the threads from the visit of President Musharraf." Jaswant Singh, July 17 "We will build on Agra to increase the areas of agreement." A.B. Vajpayee, July 24 "We have decided to continue the dialogue with Pakistan." A.B. Vajpayee, August 15
	BLOWING COLD
	"No agreement in Agra means we go back to Simla and Lahore." Foreign Ministry spokesperson, July 19 "Musharraf speaks like a soldier. No point in talking to him." A.B. Vajpayee, July 28 "Atmosphere is not ripe for India-Pakistan cricket matches." Union Sports Ministry, August 21

So where does India's relations with Pakistan stand after the Agra Summit? It should have been an easy enough answer. But the past month's statements emanating from the Indian Government, which has occasionally blown cold and hot on Pakistan, have left everyone confused. To stem criticism about India's mismanagement at the summit, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee described Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf-at the BJP's National Executive meeting-as a politically naive soldier with whom there was no point talking. This shrill approach came days after Vajpayee diplomatically declared in Parliament that Delhi had achieved a degree of understanding with Islamabad and the future lay in "further increasing the areas of agreement". It was as if the statements were tailor-made for the target audience.

So what is India's approach to Pakistan? There are few clues. Last week, it at least became clear that India does not want to play cricket with Pakistan: the Union Sports Ministry refused to allow the Indian team to go to Multan for the Asian Test Championship. But the question of continuing official talks on political issues-and the level at which they should be held-is still hanging fire. The matter assumes importance since there is an opportunity for the two leaders to exchange views on the sidelines of the forthcoming UN General Assembly in New York in the third week of September. Vajpayee is expected to address the UN on September 26, a day after Musharraf's speech to the multilateral body. With the two countries expressing the desire to continue bilateral dialogue, it seems the New York meeting will indeed take place. Perhaps the occasion will even be used to announce the dates of the foreign ministers' meeting in Islamabad. While the Pakistan Government claims that it is keenly looking forward to the engagement, India says that the meeting is under "active consideration". However, with Pakistan continuing to harp on Kashmir as the central theme for any future agreement and Musharraf's "freedom fighters" still perpetrating violence in the Valley, the dialogue may well turn out to be stillborn.

Even with such odds stacked up, Vajpayee hopes that "Pakistan will reconsider its approach and bring about a change in its perception" on cross-border terrorism. Delhi expects Pakistan to ultimately climb down from its "untenable" position of holding the bilateral dialogue "hostage" to Kashmir and move towards an all-encompassing arrangement that includes trade and economic issues. It feels that Pakistan will have to recognise that the Simla and Lahore agreements are the bedrock of Indo-Pak ties if it is sincere about engaging India in talks. Simply put, the Indian side is hoping that Pakistan will relent on the composite dialogue demand and delink the Kashmir issue from the normalisation of bilateral relations. While Delhi is amenable to taking up Kashmir on a priority basis, it wants to remind Islamabad that the sticky subject is not confined to the 120-km long and 38-km wide Kashmir Valley.

The Pakistani silence on the K-word at the SAARC foreign secretaries' meeting in Colombo this month and during the visit of Pakistan Commerce Minister Razzak Abdul Dawood to Delhi this week for regional consultations on the Doha WTO conference is seen as part of the incremental approach now being adopted by Islamabad. Former foreign secretary J.N. Dixit says there is a duality in the Indian approach towards Pakistan. He feels that the Agra Summit has made Delhi more realistic about Pakistan's motivation. "India has realised that Pakistan does not have a middle path on Kashmir. Before the summit, Islamabad was convinced that it was a matter of time before India gave up on Kashmir. Post-Agra, Pakistan understands that this is not the case, but the basic perception is the same," says Dixit. According to him, it appears from public pronouncements that Delhi is firmer in dealing with terrorism and wants to give the security forces a breather from judicial inquiries. "But there is still no cohesive policy on how to become responsive to the Kashmiri people," he laments.

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