Stifling straitjacket

Although India and Pakistan made a number of proposals on peace and security during the bilateral talks held in Islamabad, there was little evidence of any fresh thinking.

AMIT BARUAH
in Islamabad

THE Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan, who resumed formal talks in Islamabad on October 16 after 15 months, made little headway in resolving the differences between the two countries on the issues of peace and security and Kashmir but pledged to continue discussions.

It is for the first time since the Shimla Agreement was signed in 1972 that the two countries have entered into a "composite" dialogue on the basis of a pre-negotiated agenda. As per the agenda, the issue of peace and security, which includes confidence-building measures (CBMs), was taken up on October 16 and that of Kashmir the next day. A final wrap-up session was held on October 18.

Predictably, there was little meeting ground on the two issues, though a couple of CBMs proposed separately by the two countries, were similar, Pakistan's action in linking Kashmir to the issue of peace seemed to have prevented any progress in the talks.

On Kashmir itself the two sides could not find any common ground. While Pakistan restated its well-known position, India's Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath delivered a sharp and pointed message on terrorism. Raghunath told his Pakistani counterpart that India would consider the cessation of Pakistani help to terrorist activities in Kashmir as a major CBM.

While both sides made a number of proposals on peace and security, there was little evidence of any fresh thinking. Neither country appeared inclined to move out of the straitjacket that has marked their positions for the past 50 years. But then, it is futile to expect any sort of "agreement" on an issue like Kashmir in just two sessions of talks. Given the propaganda on both sides of the border (more so in Pakistan), the possibility of the two sides adopting a conciliatory approach also appears remote.

Raghunath proposed a "no-first use" arrangement in the case of nuclear weapons, extension of the present hotline between the Directors-General of Military Operations (DGMOs) to divisional and sectoral commanders, securing the existing lines between the DGMOs, reviving the hotline between the Foreign Secretaries, giving advance notice before missiles with a range of 200 km range are tested, extending the existing arrangement on non-attack on nuclear installations to population and economic centres, renewing an invitation to Pakistan's Army chief to visit India, exchange of officers between the National Defence Colleges, an immediate end to Pakistani support to terrorist activity in Kashmir and measures to cease hostile propaganda.

India also suggested that the two countries exchange views on security concepts and nuclear doctrines, work out nuclear and conventional CBMs, increase information exchange in the nuclear field to facilitate greater transparency, and set up a consultative machinery to review and implement CBMs.

Pakistan, on the other hand, proposed a formal agenda for both sessions of talks, on peace and security and Kashmir, which the Indian side did not accept. Islamabad proposed that the two sides identify issues of peace and security, agree on mechanisms for settlement of disputes and conclude an agreement on "non-use of force" (Pakistan's non-aggression pact).

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed also suggested a "strategic restraint regime in South Asia". As part of this "regime", he called for the prevention of a nuclear and missile race, an agreement on risk reduction measures, avoidance of a nuclear conflict, the formalisation of a moratorium on nuclear testing, non-induction of air-based and sea-based missile systems and a nuclear doctrine of minimum deterrence capability. On the conventional front, Ahmed proposed a mutual and balanced reduction of forces and armament levels.

B.K. BANGASH/AP
India's Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath (right) with his Pakistani counterpart Shamshad Ahmed in Islamabad.

Pakistan suggested several other measures, but the two countries could not agree to a listing of these to facilitate further discussions in February 1999 in New Delhi. This marked a glaring failure of the talks.

At every stage Pakistan wanted to link Kashmir with the question of peace and security. In fact, in the Pakistani worldview, peace and security in South Asia is predicated on a "just and fair" resolution of the Kashmir "dispute". Such an attitude and approach was clearly not acceptable to India.

New Delhi was also at pains to emphasise that it did not buy Pakistan's theory that Kashmir is a nuclear flashpoint. Talking to Indian journalists, Raghunath made it clear that the region had been nuclearised much before the nuclear tests conducted by the two countries in May.

On the concluding day of the talks, the differences came out in the open. Neither Raghunath nor Ahmed minced words in setting out the divergent positions taken by their respective countries. While Raghunath wanted the two sides to proceed from the easy to the difficult in the troubled relationship, Ahmed said that to get into "fourth gear" one had initially to go into "first gear". Raghunath said: "It does not generally help in international relations to frontload a process with problems that are unduly complicated. This is a basic commonsense idea."

Ahmed, on the other hand, disclosed that Pakistan had shown no flexibility on linking "progress" on Kashmir to "progress" on other issues: "Realism (in the dialogue process) requires the acceptance of objective realities as they exist, and not as we choose to perceive them selectively. In the name of realism we cannot tread over fundamental principles as well as the underlying causes of conflict in the region...."

Before the two sides meet in the first half of February 1999 for the next round of Foreign Secretary-level talks, they will take up the remaining six items on the agreed agenda for talks from November 5 to 13 in New Delhi. These are: Siachen (Defence Secretaries), Wullar barrage/Tulbul navigation project (Secretaries, Water and Power), Sir Creek (Additional Secretaries Defence/ Surveyors-General), terrorism and drug trafficking (Home Secretaries), economic and commercial cooperation (Commerce Secretaries) and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields (Secretaries, Culture).

Pakistan's strategy at these talks (which form part of the composite dialogue process agreed to in New York in September) will reveal whether or not its relationship with India will remain confined to a "single agenda approach". If the dialogue process is to provide some relief to the common people of India and Pakistan, then there needs to be a shift in the "Kashmir only" approach.

The nuances of the dialogue - such as composite and integral and incremental and pragmatic - are fine for diplomatic consumption, but the people of the two countries are looking for a way out of 50 years of tension. Simple steps such as the reopening of the consulates in Karachi and Mumbai will provide relief to thousands of visa-seekers in the two countries.

The talks in Islamabad have injected little optimism into the dialogue process. However, for a full appraisal of the dialogue, one will have to await the results of the New Delhi leg of the first round, to be held in November.

Rather than concentrating on the grandiose and the unachievable, the two sides would do well to focus on the "doable"- releasing prisoners and fishermen, enhancing road and rail links and making visa regimes less rigid. Both countries need to lower their guard if the talks are to have any meaning.

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