Diplomatic fire-fighting

For more than a month, senior Indian diplomats have been making efforts to contain the fallout of Pokhran but they have not been quite successful.

JOHN CHERIAN

THROUGHOUT June, Indian diplomats have been busy fire-fighting on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government at the Centre. Senior diplomats were sent to West Asia to explain the rationale behind the nuclear explosions in May. The special emissary of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh, went to Washington to soothe the anger of the Clinton administration, but the mission was not very successful. Minister of State for External Affairs Vasundhara Raje Scindia visited three South-East Asian countries in the third week of June. Before the month ended, she was off again, this time to the Caucasus, visiting Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Brajesh Mishra, was cordially welcomed in Moscow and Paris, where he went as the Prime Minister's special envoy and met top officials. He also had a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. In the capital of all the three countries, the refrain was that India should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) immediately.

New Delhi's complaints regarding the economic sanctions got a sympathetic hearing in Paris and Moscow. Russia is party to the G-8 and P-5 stand on international sanctions against India and Pakistan. However, senior Russian officials have emphasised that the sanctions tend to be counterproductive. India has described the sanctions as "coercive and counterproductive". New Delhi is obviously worried about Washington's success in internationalising the sanctions and the growing Sino-American contacts.

VINO JOHN
Jaswant Singh, who visited Washington as the Prime Minister's special envoy.

French President Jacques Chirac suggested to Brajesh Mishra that India unilaterally announce a moratorium on nuclear tests and make it a permanent commitment. The Vajpayee Gover-nment seems to have taken this suggestion seriously. Announcement of a permanent moratorium is a necessary step before signing the CTBT. This is a clear indication that the BJP-led Government is considering the option of signing the CTBT despite the blatantly discriminatory nature of the treaty. However, some senior External Affairs Ministry officials claim that as far as India is concerned the argument that the CTBT is discriminatory is no longer valid as it has conducted its nuclear tests successfully. India, they say, has enough data and technology to conduct sub-critical tests, which are not banned under the CTBT. The U.S. State Department has said that the sanctions would be lifted only if New Delhi announces a halt to further testing and signs the CTBT.

ANU PUSHKARNA
Minister of State for External Affairs Vasundhara Raje Scindia.

Diplomats have also been trying to allay the fears of India's immediate neighbours. South Asian countries feel threatened by the prospect of a looming missile and nuclear arms race. Maldivian President Abdul Gayoom, who had an excellent rapport with the previous Government in New Delhi, cancelled his state visit to India, which was scheduled for May. As the outgoing Chairman of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Gayoom was due to make customary visits to Islamabad and New Delhi. He cancelled his visit to Islamabad as well. Indian diplomats have worked overtime to ensure that the SAARC meeting in Colombo does not become a forum for India-baiting. President K.R. Narayanan's visit to Nepal in May helped clear apprehensions in the Himalayan kingdom about an Indian bomb. Brajesh Mishra was also in Kathmandu to explain the Indian position.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was in New Delhi in June. Sri Lanka has expressed its apprehensions about a nuclear and missile race in the subcontinent. Pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sentiments expressed by some of the BJP's coalition partners have also alarmed Colombo. Kadirgamar's primary task in New Delhi was to ensure that the SAARC summit took off without major hiccups.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came on a one-day "working visit" to New Delhi in the month. Bangladesh expressed its concerns about the accelerating missile and nuclear race in the subcontinent. Vajpayee assured Sheikh Hasina that the Pokhran tests were not directed at any specific country and reiterated New Delhi's serious interest in normalising relations with Pakistan under a bilateral framework in order to de-escalate the tensions in South Asia. Sheikh Hasina, however, expressed her country's apprehensions about the impact that the nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan will have on the South Asian economy.

The Indian Government's decision in the last week of June to convey to the United Nations that a high-level U.N. team led by Alcaro de Soto, Assistant Secretary-General and the Secretary-General's special envoy, was not welcome to India, came as a surprise. The decision was taken at the eleventh hour, when the team was already in Dhaka, and could send the wrong signals to the international community. The U.N. team was sent following a Security Council decision: the Security Council had concluded that tensions had increased considerably in the South Asian region since the two countries carried out their nuclear tests.

De Soto carried a personal letter to the Indian Prime Minister from the Secretary General Kofi Annan.

ANU PUSHKARNA
Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, met top officials in Moscow and Paris regarding international economic sanctions.

The Foreign Ministry has evidently concluded that the U.N. team's proposal to discuss matters relating to "regional tensions and issues" would end up focussing on Kashmir, and that its visit would only serve to internationalise the Kashmir issue further. A U.N. spokesman had said that De Soto had no intention to act as a mediator on the issue.

However, the External Affairs Ministry has said that it would welcome the proposed visit of the Secretary-General. An official in the Ministry said that Kofi Annan was "always welcome to visit India for discussions on global issues, including global nuclear disarmament."

Islamabad, meanwhile, has welcomed the U.N. team's visit. A Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman said that it "was absolutely necessary that the U.N. Secretary-General gets personally involved in South Asia."

However, the major diplomatic outcome of Pokhran has been the renewed international focus on Kashmir. Eqbal Ahmad, a prominent Pakistani academic and journalist, is of the view that the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have virtually ruled out the possibility of a conventional war between the two countries. Ahmad, speaking at a round table organised by the Delhi Study Group in the last week of June, said that proxy wars could intensify unless the trend of making peace prevailed. He said that many people in the Pakistani establishment were surprised when India conducted its nuclear tests; he added that they were not too unhappy either. From the Pakistani perspective, India's tests negated the significant strides New Delhi had made in its relations with Beijing.

Before Pokhran, Ahmad said, visiting Chinese leaders advised Pakistan to settle all its disputes with India, including Kashmir, bilaterally. Ahmad pointed out that the fact that President Jiang Zemin came to New Delhi before going to Islamabad during his last state visit to the two countries was a signal that Beijing no longer had a "special relationship" with Islamabad. Now, after the provocative statements of Defence Minister George Fernandes and the nuclear tests, China was once again tilting towards Pakistan, he said.

Secretary-level talks between the two countries are likely to start after the SAARC summit at the end of July. Vajpayee and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are scheduled to have a meeting in Colombo during the summit, and indications are that Secretary-level talks will once again be kick-started. At the last SAARC summit, former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral gave an assurance that a joint working group on Kashmir would be set up. Ahmad said that it was more important to get talks started on Kashmir, even though that was not the solution in itself.

Any outright refusal by India to discuss Kashmir will send the wrong signals to the international community. Islamabad, with some encouragement from the G-8 and the P-5, has demanded third-party mediation on Kashmir. India should now show that it is serious about de-escalating the tensions in South Asia and starting a sincere dialogue with Pakistan.

Table of Contents

Home | The Hindu | Business Line | Sportstar