INDIA:The burgeoning rapprochement between armed nuclear rivals India and Pakistan took another major step forward yesterday, Rahul Bedi reports from New Delhi.
India and Pakistan agreed yesterday to begin talks next month to try and resolve a range of contentious issues, just two years after the nuclear rivals came close to war.
The talks between the neighbours, who share over half a century of relentless antagonism that includes three wars and an 11-week-long border skirmish, would be "comprehensive".
They would take in the flashpoint dispute over insurgency-ridden Kashmir state, foreign ministers from both countries said in a joint statement issued in Islamabad.
Cross-border terrorism in Kashmir- divided between the neighbours but claimed by both - of which Pakistan stands accused by India but denies any involvement, will also be on the agenda. The negotiations are expected to include two other territorial disputes dating back to independence 56 years ago and varied confidence building measures like trade and people-to-people contact.
The venue for the talks and the level at which they will be held, were still to be worked out, India's Foreign Minister Mr Yashwant Sinha said.
Mr Sinha's caution, echoed by senior Pakistani leaders, was prompted by an earlier peacemaking attempt by the countries in India in 2001 that faltered at the altar of the hype generated by the media and because both sides played negatively to the gallery.
"There are no winners or losers [in the talks\]," Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf said at a press conference in Islamabad, a day after meeting India's prime minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, on the sidelines of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit that concluded yesterday.
Gen Musharraf said that "history had been made", asserting that the two countries would "take this process of normalisation forward".
The surprise agreement that has gone further than expected followed two days of hectic talks between Indian and Pakistani leaders in Islamabad attending the SAARC meet. The ice between the neighbours melted after Mr Vajpayee met his Pakistani counterpart Mr Mir Zafarullah Jamali on Sunday, but his detente with Gen Musharraf was of greater significance as he wields the real power in Pakistan, being both president and army chief.
To initiate bilateral talks Mr Vajpayee demanded that all Pakistani involvement in violence, hostility and terrorism in Kashmir end, Mr Sinha said.
In response, Gen Musharraf assured the Indian prime minister that he would not permit Pakistani territory for any such activity and in return got Mr Vajpyee to agree to discuss the dispute over Kashmir.
Pakistani and Indian diplomats and security officials, meanwhile, have reacted with "cautious optimism" to the outcome at Islamabad.
They concede the discussions between the two adversaries were short on substance and high on "atmospherics", but believe dialogue between the nuclear powers is a "step forward" on the principle that "jaw-jaw was better than war-war ".
There is little doubt in both countries that dialogue would be a "long haul" of carefully structured and calibrated negotiation, always with the real possibility of a breakdown, given the fragility of the relationship and high levels of mutual mistrust.
"There appears to be an inherent desire to move forward by the two sides, given the stand-off over the past three years," said Satish Kumar, a former professor of diplomacy and Pakistan expert said. But there were many stumbling blocks along the way, he warned.
This will become apparent when specifics like Kashmir, Pakistan's support for cross-border terrorism and nuclear concerns are discussed. All these issues have bedevilled relations between the South Asian neighbours, defying any compromise solution as both sides believe their stand to be justified and remain intransigent and unwilling to compromise or "blink ".
Militant infiltration into Indian-administered Kashmir from Pakistan has ebbed considerably in the run-up to the SAARC meet, but such activity normally slows to a trickle during the winter months when the Himalayan passes are snowed under.
Security and military officials in Delhi said the advent of summer would provide an indicator of whether Pakistan is serious about controlling jihadis ( Muslim warriors ) from various tanzeems ( militant groups ) from infiltrating Kashmir.
This, in turn, would depend on Gen Mushraff's ability to rein in the Islamist groups within his country that operate in tandem with fundamentalist elements in his army and the omnipotent Inter Services Intelligence Directorate. The army and the ISID "ran" the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, raised and installed the Taliban militia in Kabul in the mid-1990s and fuel the 14-year-old Kashmiri insurgency that has claimed over 65,000 lives.
Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist coalition government India, on the other, hand faces general elections in a few months time. And should Vajpayee's Pakistan initiative go awry, he faces problems from his own allies and the electorate of having "supped" needlessly with the enemy. In short, the outcome of India-Pakistan relations remains delicately balanced, albeit somewhat less precariously for the moment.