India-Pak Peace Process Has Long Way to Go

Anyone who has witnessed what was going on in this ancient city of north India in the past two days will understand best how difficult it is for two uncompromising rivals to end a 54-year-old row and how fragile a hope for peace and love could be in the face of accumulated animosity and mistrust.

Despite a good opening described as "positive and upbeat" and four rounds of talks "marked by cordiality and candor," the first summit meeting between Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in more than two years ended here late Monday night without the inking of a highly- expected joint statement on the improvement of bilateral relations.

"They Broke The Ice and Then Froze," a local newspaper headline quipped. "Ice-breaking" was one of the most frequently used words to underscore the significance of the summit, so were "historic" and "landmark."

At a press conference here on Tuesday morning, a stern-looking Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh read before several hundred local and foreign journalists an official statement by the Indian government, which said India was "of course disappointed" at the two sides' inability to arrive at an agreed text of a planned post-summit joint statement.

This was on an account of the difficulty in reconciling the two sides' basic approaches to bilateral relations, claimed the statement.

It would certainly be unfair to blame either the Indian delegation or the Pakistanis for not working hard enough to make their talks successful or at least appear to be. Foreign secretaries of both governments were said to have worked overnight on Sunday for the draft text of a joint statement.

President Musharraf, who arrived in New Delhi on July 14 as the first Pakistan leader setting foot on Indian soil in 16 years, also called off a scheduled tour to Rajasthan and slightly extended his stay in India till around midnight Monday for prolonged talks with Vajpayee.

For some moments on Monday afternoon, news had spread wide that the two sides would sign a nine-point Agra Declaration "at any minute" and a joint press conference by the two leaders would follow, a clear indication of how close the negotiators had been to a mutually acceptable document.

But Singh told the press here on Tuesday morning that the talks had eventually been prevented from any further progress with both sides finding difficulties in ironing out divergence of their positions in "three broad areas."

The first difficulty had arisen from the two sides' sharply divided views on the Kashmir issue. While Pakistan had adopted a " unifocal approach" by insisting that there would be no progress on any other matters unless Kashmir was laid central in the talks, India pushed for an "approach of totality" which would address all issues in bilateral relations, Singh noted.

India and Pakistan had already had an intense war of words over the "centrality of Kashmir" in the run-up to the summit, which stirred up in both countries much skeptical and pessimistic sentiments. The same controversy was rekindled during the summit when an Indian cabinet minister spoke to the media about Sunday's one-to-one talks between Vajpayee and Musharraf but "omitted" the two leaders' discussions on Kashmir, causing much displeasure on the Pakistani side. At a breakfast meeting with editors of selected Indian media on Monday morning, Musharraf reiterated the Pakistan stand that Kashmir should be the focus of talks with India.

The second difficulty quoted by Singh was related to the so- called issue of "cross-border terrorism," an Indian interpretation of decade-long militancy and violence in India-controlled Kashmir.

Pakistani media sources had said earlier that although Pakistan agreed to discuss the issue of terrorism with India, it strongly opposed use of the word "cross-border." India's insistence on writing this word into the draft joint statement had directly led to "the breakdown of the talks," they added.

Elaborating on the third difficulty in the talks, Singh said that India believed every compact of agreement or effort preceding the present effort in Agra, namely the Simla Agreement and Lahore Declaration, cannot be negated, rescinded or disobeyed, but Pakistan had a different view on this.

Singh also conceded that judged by the result of the talks, preparations for the summit might have been insufficient, as both sides didn't prepare any draft joint documents until the summit had started.

While many media reports dubbed the Agra summit a "failure" or "futile exercise," Singh and the Indian government firmly refused to adopt the same view.

"No, I don't characterize it as a failure," Singh responded very quickly to a reporter's question, adding that he regarded the just-concluded summit as "yet another step in the march towards finding peace, amity and prosperity" of both countries.

The government statement also pointed out that the summit had " provided an invaluable opportunity to both sides to understand each other's view points, concerns and compulsions."

"We will pick up the threads from the visit of the President of Pakistan. We will unceasingly endeavor to realize our vision of a relationship of peace, friendship and cooperation with Pakistan," it added.

Another golden opportunity is already at hand for both countries. In a move which turned out to be the only substantial achievement of the Agra summit, Vajpayee has accepted an invitation to visit Pakistan extended by Musharraf in their first- day talks.

Singh confirmed at the press conference that both Musharraf's invitation and Vajpayee's acceptance "remain in place," adding that the Prime Minister would carry out the visit on due time following necessary diplomatic arrangements.

With the memory of Agra still fresh in mind, both sides are most likely to adopt a more flexible approach in the spirit of mutual understanding and mutual accommodation when the next summit falls, some analysts here said.






People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/