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| Gap between Pakistan’s talk and actions widening | | |
ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, JAN 28: The Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Geelani’s impassioned plea for the resumption of bilateral talks with New Delhi made through a television interview given to an Indian channel and cautious Indian reaction in the wake of it indicate that the separatists from Kashmir Valley have little chance to be taken on board in near future by the low-key diplomacy that now marks the relations between the two neighbouring countries.
Though mainly tied to coattails of Islamabad, the separatist leaders did warm up during the past weeks or months to seize the opportunity of talks with New Delhi the offer for which was repeated by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in his Republic Day speech, the separatists quailed before Pakistan’s keenness to negotiate their (separatist Hurriyat’s) point of view first with Indian leadership.
Pakistan in the meantime has been exhorting the All-Party Hurriyat Conference to sink differences in their ranks in order to put a more united front before Indian leaders with their demands of relaxing Centre’s control over Jammu and Kashmir the high point for which has been the Hurriyat slogan for Azadi or freedom.
Pakistan has also been showing willingness to talk to Hurriyat leaders separately and has often been extending invitations for this to leaders like Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani to visit Islamabad. Yet the possibility for such meetings have only been hoisted and their taking place has often been postponed since none of the parties find themselves in a position to lay their cards on the table.
Another reason for the delay in these talks of Hurriyat and Islamabad is that amid the US pressure Pakistan has to show to Washington that it is mainly engaged with the happenings on its North-Western border regions with Afghanistan.
Thus, Yousaf Raza Geelani has spoken about the urgent need for talks between India and Pakistan on all issues including terrorists’ strikes in Mumbai over a year ago and other none too good happenings elsewhere after seeing that New Delhi’s moves vis-à-vis engaging Hurriyat in talks come a cropper.
Significantly, this has not so far been the case though at certain points of time as is the case now Hurriyat might have been cold to New Delhi’s offer for talks but the channels of interactions have been open. And, thus, Indian stand regarding resuming talks with Pakistan only after convincing proof of a change in State policy of supporting terrorists from across the borders comes has been becoming worrisome for Islamabad. And so is the possibility of the talks between Hurriyat with Indian leaders.
The diverse Indian and Pakistani stands on Kashmir with Hurriyat in between signify the blurring of dividing lines between the two neighbouring countries. With each terrorist strike the two standpoints become more distant. This simple fact has to be accounted for the chill besetting the relations between the two countries.
Pakistan wants the recent attacks by Talibans to be linked together with the terrorist violence that has been unleashed and is still dogging India. This has also been asserted by Prime Minister Geelani in his interview given to CNN-IBN channel which was telecast today by saying that there have been 101 Mumbai like attacks in Pakistan by terrorists. And India and Pakistan, thus, should not succumb to terrorists’ plan to keep them away from talks.
Yet the difference between the attacks that took place in Pakistan and those faced by India is that Islamabad faces violence directed against it by Talibans from its Frontier province who have links with their cohorts in Afghanistan while attacks on India have mainly been from West Punjab based Lashkar and other similar organisations against whom Islamabad has been shying from taking action because of the Punjabi predominance of its civil and military establishments.
Put together this with the fact that both Taliban and outfits like Lashkar have been getting State patronage for long in the past inside Pakistan whether because of the cold war or other reasons, it is clear that Islamabad has to do a lot to purge them from the body politic.
Indian reaction to today’s assertion by Geelani mainly coming from Union Home Minister P Chidambaram who said that quite a few suspects in 26/11 attack on Mumbai were still roaming scot-free inside Pakistan has been meant remind Pakistan of the gap between words and actions of the power-that-be in Pakistan.
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