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| Sharif hopes dialogue may resume after Lok Sabha poll | | |
If Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif has predicted that some breakthrough in Indo-Pak parleys was possible only after the Lok Sabha election he has said the correct thing because when the general elections are round the corner no govt can go in for some major policy implementation unless it has a bearing on the poll outcome.Since the 2008 Pak sponsored mayhem in Mumbai the relations between India and Pakistan have touched a new low despite sporadic attempts at building bridges through series of bilateral talks.These talks,however,indicated easing of tension between the two sides.However,the fragile relation between India and Pakistan came under fresh stress and strain when Pakistani troops aided militants for crossing into Jammu and Kashmir and kept on violating ceasefire repeatedly in which a number of security personnel were killed and injured.Several thousand families of civilians were gripped by scare forcing some of them to flee to safer places.And during this period Indian refused to respond to repeated plea from Islamabad for resumption of bilateral dialogue.What had embittered New Delhi was the way Pak troops resorted to unprovoked firing on the Indian border posts and villages at a time when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was getting ready to meet his Pak counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of UN General Assembly in New York.
Now that the border scene has improved after the Pak troops stopped pounding Indian border posts and villages with mortar and gun fire it seems to be too early to start the process of dialogue when the Congress led UPA Government in New Delhi is getting ready to contest the Lok Sabha election,due next year.And Nawaz Sharif knows all the political intricacies attached with the Indo-Pak parleys.The mood in the country is opposed to resumption of dialogue with Pakistan because of repeated ceasefire violations,upward curve in the level of infiltration attempts by militants and the increase in the activities of Pak trained militants within Jammu and Kashmir.Nawaz Sharif may not be totally unaware of this development and that is why he has hoped that Indo-Pak talks are likely to be resumed after the Lok Sabha elections.Nawaz Sharif has pitched for the resumption of India-Pakistan dialogue to settle all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, but acknowledged that a breakthrough was likely only after the general elections next year.Sharif said it was his PML-N party's "principled stand" to have better ties with India and the recent firing and tensions on the Line of Control (LoC) were not in the interest of both sides.The two countries should sit across the table and solve all issues, including the Kashmir issue, he has said.Sharif, however, made it clear he was not expecting anything big to happen before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. "After the elections (in India), there should be a chance that both countries sit down together and resolve disputes over the table," he said.He described former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, with whom he held talks in 1999, as a "real statesman", and said the upcoming dialogue should be held in the spirit of the past parleys.
It has been seen that Pakistani leaders remember those political events or incidents that suit them and feign ignorance of those development that go against the interests of Islamabad.It is in this context that Nawaz Sharif has repeatedly referred to former Indian Prime Minister,Atal Behari Vajpayee,claiming that he had told him (Sharif) that Vajpayee was in favour of resolving all the issue,including the Kashmir issue,through talks.And hence Sharif wants that talks should be carried forward based on the lines painted by Vajpayee. Nawaz Sharif has said that he was ready for meaningful dialogue and that he has said so even before the general elections in Pakistan in May last. In order to display his sincerity on settling issues with India through talks Nawaz Sharif has refrred to his party's election campaign and said that there was no India-bashing in the campaign for Pakistan's general election in May and not a word was spoken against India.He is not in favour of Pakistan bashing during electioneering for the Lok Sabha poll in India.But Nawaz seems to have short memory.Has he forgotten that soon after he was installed as Prime Minister his troops adopted offensive postures on the LOC and the IB in Jammu and Kashmir.Is it a case of Army running a parallel Government in Pakistan ? Nawaz needs to look into it before he expects New Delhi to resume bilateral dialogue.Nawaz needs to know that whenever India agreed to hold bilateral parleys agencies in Pakistan indulged in acts that sabotaged the process of dialogue. Nawaz Sharif should check it. |
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