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| Let Pillai-Zaman talks reduce trust deficit | | | Yet gain a ray of hope has begun dawning on the Indian subcontinent following flurry of activities on either side of the LOC in connection with the home secretary level talks that are to open in New Delhi from Monday.The talks between India's Home Secretary,G.K.Pillai,and his counterpart,Qamar Zaman,are to last for two days.Both sides seem to be optimistic on the outcome of the talks but it is not known whether this optimism is genuine or an attempt at concealing mistrust that has existed between the two sides. No doubt one may not expect the Pillai-Zaman talks to resolve all the issues that have been hanging fire for decades together, one is satisfied over the way the two sides have decided to hold talks.Pakistan Prime Minister,Yousuf Raza Gilani,has said,while referring to the Pillai-Zaman talks,that dialogue and not the wars can resolve disputes and problems.Gilani seems to be keen to see that two-day talks between the two home secretaries and the ones
that are likely to follow settle the key problems that have come in the way of promoting cordial ties between Islamabad and New Delhi.
Even the Indian Prime Minister,Manmohan Singh,has initiated what may be called sports diplomacy by inviting Pakistan President,Asif Ali Zardari,and the Prime Minister,Yousuf Raza Gilani to Mohali to watch the semifinal between Indian and the Pakistani cricket teams. In fact the Monday-Tuesday talks would be the second one in he current year after the meeting between the two foreign secretaries,Nirupama Rao and Salman Bashir,on the sidelines of the SAARC meeting at Thimpu in Bhutan in the first week of February.This shows that the two sides wish to keep the channels of dialogue open so that the level of trust deficit was reduced. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already given a green signal to Pillai to raise all issues that bother India during his meeting with Qamar Zaman.And the issues likely to be taken up by Pillai include the one connected with progress in Mumbai carnage case with reference to the action having been taken against the perpetrators of the Mumbai mayhem,crossborder terrorism and flow of fake currency into the Indian market from across the LOC.Well Pakistan side has decided to counter India's demand for action against those involved in Mumbai terror strike by seeking information on what action Delhi had taken against those right wing terrorists involved in Samjuta Express blast.Pakistan side will demand that India "needs to bridge the gap between what it says and what it does" juxtaposing New Delhi's slow handling of the 2007 Samjhauta blast case with its insistence on a quick trial for the Mumbai attack accused.
But India is not prepared to take it lying down. It has hit back, saying the two cases were not comparable, and there were clear leads in the Mumbai incident unlike in the cross-border train attack case. With this background India is going for the "exploratory" talks with "cautious optimism" and "reasonable expectations" and expressed its willingness to discuss all outstanding issues with Pakistan, but by a step-by-step approach.Both sides will try to pick up the thread that two sides had left at Thimpu during Salman-Rao talks. Reports do suggest that Islamabad has started showing a bit of sincerity while wishing the talks to succeed because neither the Army nor the ISI in Pakistan are as strictly opposed to the bilateral dialogue as they used to be a couple of months ago.According to these reports,two factors seem to have motivated Islamabad to approach the negotiating table with a flexible mind.One,it has come under the pressure of Washington that has been goading Islamabad to resolve problems and disputes with New Delhi through parleys.Secondly,the internal political and security environment in Pakistan continues to be in a state of flux.It thinks that if it succeeds in promoting cordial ties with India it could claim a major political victory within Pakistan.Also,it could give it another opportunity to extract a pound of flesh from Washington on whose financial support Islamabad has been banking for the last several decades.In fact the US financial support has been further increased by Washington after it got entangled in war against terror in Afghanistan. The monetary aid received by Pakistan from the US Government may be to the tune of several billion rupees part of which it had to spend on providing relief to over 20 million people who had been affected by floods. Hence Pakistan has to keep Washington in good humour.Still one cannot trust Islamabad's political pranks which it is adept in
playing vis-a-vis New Delhi. |
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