Politic-Economic-Society-Tech

No peace pact but India feels not all is lost 

AHIRUDIN ATTAN


AGRA (Uttar Pradesh), Tues: No peace pact via Agra but India clings to the belief, on the morning after the hyped Indo-Pakistan summit ended in controversial fashion late last night, that not all was lost.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said in a prepared statement, "(India) will pick up the threads from the visit of the President of Pakistan.

We will unceasingly endeavour to realise our vision of a relationship of peace, friendship and cooperation with Pakistan".

Proof to this is that Vajpayee said he still plans to visit Pakistan despite the outcome of the Agra talks.

"The issue (of turning down President Musharraf's invitation) does not arise.

The Prime Minister accepted the invitation and he intends to visit Pakistan," Defence and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told a press conference after reading out the statement here.

India will also "fully implement" the confidence-building measures which it announced even before Musharraf's visit.

"It is our conviction that, when put in place, they will make an important contribution to our relations," the statement said.

To most observers, even the most cautiously optimistic ones, the failure of the Agra summit was totally unexpected.

At the least, people expected modest achievements from the talks.

Jaswant Singh said the Indian Government is "of course disappointed that the two sides could not arrive at an agreed text".

At one point in the talks on Sunday, the press was informed that Agra would see a breakthrough in Indo-Pakistan ties.

The members of the media were told to expect an Agra Declaration or at least a joint statement to be issued that evening.

In diplomatic parlance, a declaration is an agreement between two parties to bury differences.

A joint statement is not as strong but allows room for the two parties to maintain their differences and speak in two voices under one head.

At the end of the two-day summit, Agra saw neither.

Jaswant Singh refused to be drawn "to play the game" of blaming the other party for the Agra fiasco.

So when an Indian journalist suggested that the talks collapsed per-haps because "Musharraf, the dictator, was not used to not having his way", he said, "It is not for me to decide on the internal arrangement for Pakis-tan".

He defended his colleague Information and Broadcast Minister Sushma Swaraj, whose remarks on Sunday had so offended Musharraf, saying that her remarks played no part in the outcome of the Agra summit.

"She spoke on behalf of the Government of India.

"Swaraj, briefing journalists on Sunday, had said that Musharraf and Vajpayee discussed bilateral trade, prisoners of war, and cross-border violence and terrorism in their one-to-one talks that day.

Musharraf accused her of deliberately omitting Kashmir, the issue he wanted to make central to the Agra summit.

Jaswant Singh also denied that the Indian authorities had refused Musharraf his wish to speak to the media last night.

"We did not stand in the way of President Musharraf to hold any press conference in any fashion and in any way.

Security requirements, however, required that a 90-minute notice must be given before any press conference can be held.

"So, it wasn't the Indian Government (that blocked Musharraf's press conference) but security considerations and also the question of practicality.

"But amid the jargons and controversies, it is hard to miss the thinly-veiled warning issued by New Delhi in the prepared statement.

Blaming the failure to issue any text from Agra on both sides' difficulty in reconciling their basic approaches to bilateral relations, the statement stressed that "India is convinced that narrow, segmented or unifocal approaches, will simply not work".

"Our focus has to remain on the totality of relationship, and a mutually beneficial relationship even as we address and move forward on all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir; building upon the existing compacts of Simla and Lahore.

"It was also made abundantly clear to the Pakistan side during the visit that the promotion of cross-border terrorism and violence are unacceptable and must cease.

Let there be no illusions on this score: India has the will and resolve to defeat all such challenges.

"To ensure that the Indian, Pakistani and international media understood what the statement meant, Jaswant Singh recalled Musharraf's insistence at the onset of Agra that Indo-Pakistan ties depends on Kashmir, and Kashmir alone.

"We do not think that Indo-Pakistan ties can be held hostage by any single issue," Jaswant Singh said.

India and Pakistan went to war twice over Kashmir, in 1965 and 1971.

In the late 1980s, militant and separatist groups started to wage war against India, mostly along the Line of Control, a 740km partition that has become the de facto border separating Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and India's Jammu and Kashmir.

There are 3.8 million Muslims and 1.9 million Hindus in Kashmir.

Between 1988 and 2000, 26,226 people were killed in incidences related to Kashmir insurgence.

source: The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia), 18 July 2001