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| Will Foreign Secretaries move beyond warm handshakes and telegenic smile? | | |
ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, FEB 24: Somehow before tomorrow’s meeting between top most serving diplomats of India and Pakistan both the sides have warned against prejudging the outcome of the talks that are luckily going to take place despite so many differences between the two neighbouring countries.
Though there are no big expectations attached to the talks and seasoned diplomats like KC Singh, a former Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry, have called tomorrow’s parleys as only “talks about talks”, both Indian and Pakistani sides have been trying to summon a positive outlook in the wake of growing world opinion against a longstanding virtual cold war among them.
Both the countries know that nobody expects them to make any great breakthrough and yet none wants to be totally disappointed by the beginning that is going to be made tomorrow after a significant and precious lapse of time mainly after and due to 26/11 attack on Mumbai in 2008.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has indicated that India would approach tomorrow’s talks with an open mind. And her Pakistan counterpart Salman Bashir on his arrival here today said at Delhi Airport that he expected to bridge the differences – “It is good to be back. I have come here to bridge the differences. I am hopeful of a positive outcome.”
Later, Bashir too cautioned presspersons against prejudging the outcome.
He is going to be accompanied in his talks with Rao by a Pakistan Foreign Ministry delegation that includes among others its spokesman Abdul Basit. And his Indian counterpart Vishnu Prakash is also going to be present from the Indian or host’s side during the discussions.
This ensures hope for some kind of briefing, if not a joint-statement, after the talks. Yet it is to be seen whether the two Secretaries are able to move beyond warm handshakes and telegenic smiles as has been customary in the past before and after such meetings.
This is going to be more so since for ages now the two countries have been trapped by either Kashmir or incidents like 26/11. Before the last of them, it was Mubmbai train serial blasts in July 2006, or attack on Parliament in 2001, or Kargil, or Kandahar highjack of an Indian airliner.
So much so, that there are analysts who argue that this month Pune bakery blast or the kidnapping and beheading of Sikhs in Northern Pakistan have been aimed at deterring India and Pakistan from coming to even talking terms through their Foreign Secretaries.
A tit-for-tat has long been the story of India-Pakistan relations. This once prompted Professor Achin Vanaik, a Delhi University expert on international relations in his own right that “India and Pakistan are like black and white keys of a piano that go down one after the other out of sheer habit and often not for wrong reasons.”
Today this may somewhat well define the challenge before the two Foreign Secretaries. More so, since all eyes are set on them -- not only South Asia or the subcontinent but also the rest of the world is awaiting with their breaths out for a different tune from the talking parties this time than that of their beaten and bitter past. |
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