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Collapse of Agra summit : Blame-game starts, but the show will go on

	July 23, 2001

After teetering on the brink of a dramatic breakthrough at two days of intensive one-to-one talks spread over six rounds and running well into six hours, the Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee, and his Pakistani host, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, dispersed without signing the Agra Declaration. A table and two chairs had been laid out for the signing ceremony and everything had been firmed up after the officials from the two sides fought over some words and reconciled. But, at the end, the two leaders failed to agree even on a joint statement, leave alone an Agra declaration. Differences over accommodation of each others core concerns - Kashmir and cross border terrorism - prevented the two countries from continuing their combined journey on the high road to peace and Gen. Musharraf left Agra in a huff in the middle of the night on July 16 after a farewell call on the Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee, but not with yet another encounter with newsmen.

Pakistan made some concessions. Gen. Musharraf agreed that Kashmir should not be described as “dispute” but an “issue”. India for its part agreed to drop its insistence on inscribing in the declaration “cross border terrorism” after Pakistan agreed not to insist on the reference to the “aspirations of the people of Kashmir.”



Show will go on

The saving grace, however, is the decision to go on with the show. Both the Foreign Ministers of the two countries at their respective press conferences on the same day on July 17 played down the talks failure. Although Mr. Jaswant Singh at his press conference attributed the failure of the Agra summit to Pakistan’s refusal to acknowledge India’s position on cross-border terrorism, he said, “the caravan of peace” will move on despite the differences. His Pakistani counterpart, Mr. Abdul Sattar, also said, the summit was inconclusive and not a flop and that their talks in Agra would serve as a “valuable foundation” for the two leaders to reach “a full agreement” at a future meeting. While the invitation by Mr. Musharraf to Prime Minister Vajpayee to visit Pakistan stands, before him Mr. Jaswant Singh will be going to the Pakistan capital to ensure that the hard labour put in by the two countries to narrow their differences on the Kashmir issue does not go down the drain.

At one time, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, the Agra draft was dead and we must start afresh on the basis of existing Simla Declaration and the Lahore Declaration, but this line was not pursued after Islamabad expressed shock at the U-turn by New Delhi on the summit and argued that this stand would cause a serious setback to the process of reconciliation and dialogue set in motion by President Musharraf.



Fundamental differences

While fundamental differences on some key issues came in the way of signing the Agra Declaration, other clouds also appeared on the horizon. President Musharraf used a televised breakfast meeting with Indian media on July 15 as a bully pulpit, triggering the release of Prime Minister Vajpayee’s opening statement at the first plenary. The breakfast meeting with Indian editors was billed as his interaction with a section of a sensitive section of society, but he converted it into an occasion to present Pakistan’s case on Kashmir and to present his chargesheet against this country. Core issues, political observers say, are not discussed at a press conference in the middle of a summit meeting but in closed door away from journalists. But, a new comer to the political arena, the General relapsed to the army tradition of briefing area commanders on war games expecting total obedience. The Indian government got wind of this from the frequent replay of his comments on government-controlled Pakistan TV private Indian TV channels who were made available videotapes of Gen. Musharraf’s press so-called breakfast meeting with Indian journalists. The Indian riposte came quick and firm. The war of posturing was joined and the end result could not but be a verbal confrontation. The Information Minister, Ms Sushma Swaraj’s, remarks on the issues discussed, in which she did not mention Kashmir, shocked Gen. Musharraf, so much when he saw it on TV that he immediately asked his aides to lodge a protest and he himself took her to task for omitting Kashmir from the issues he discussed with Mr. Vajpayee, though much of the time was taken up by this core and central issue.



Failure to reach common ground on draft document

The two leaders met six times in Agra over a period of two days on July 15 and 16. Gen. Musharraf delayed his departure by nearly ten hours and cancelled his visit to Ajmer but in the end, an understanding proved elusive. Earlier in the day on July 16, the revelation that an “Agra Declaration” was being worked out raised hopes that history would again be made in the city of Agra that had been at the heart of a glorious chapter of the collective past of the sub-continent. But, as the two delegations battled to overcome differences on Kashmir and cross-border terrorism, a despondent night fell over Agra reflecting the depth of the political divide between India and Pakistan. While they could not grasp at an Agra Declaration, the two countries could not even produce a routine joint statement that would have recorded an agreed story of the Agra summit. It was left to the Indian spokeswoman, Ms Narupama Rao to put on record India’s disappointment in a one-line statement: “The destination of a joint statement has not been reached.” The Pakistani scribes almost pursued and mobbed her in the Media Centre and for this misbehavior the Pakistan High Commission has given an apology. The Indian authorities expressed inability to arrange a parting press conference for Gen. Musharraf, who left in a huff around the middle of the night without waiting for the day light to break.

There are various versions about what led to the collapse of the summit at the last moment. Without naming the hardliner Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, the spokesman of Gen. Musharraf, Maj.Gen. Rashid Qureshi, alleged that “an invisible hand” spoiled the show, a charge denied by External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh. According to Indian sources, the draft “Agra Declaration” had nine articles, and would have constituted a significant advance over the Lahore Declaration signed by Mr. Vajpayee and the then Pakistan Prime Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, in February, 1999.

The summit cleared its first hurdle on Day One, when President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee broke over two years of sterility by agreeing to take their talks beyond Agra. At the end of a talkathon on July 15, there were hopes that the leaders would come up with a joint statement, if not a Declaration the next day at the scheduled close of the summit. Mr. Vajpayee agreed to visit Islamabad on being invited by Gen. Musharraf which itself was an indication that the two sides intended to keep their interaction going. Closeted alone for one and a half hours, the leaders continued their talks way beyond the time anyone had expected, setting the trend for the negotiations that followed when the delegations of the two sides met. Simultaneously, the two Foreign Ministers, Jaswant Singh, and Abdul Sattar, were huddled together, again without aides, on the sidelines of the summit. The first sign that the talks were going according to script came from the statement by Indian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman who described them as “very cordial, frank and constructive”.

At the summiteers turned in for the night, they left behind three scenarios for the next day: a statement simply recording the developments, a joint statement or an Agra Declaration. The atmosphere at the end of the day suggested that the two sides had progressed beyond the first and were almost there at the second. But, as the Agra summit creaked to an end late night the next day on July 16, it was clear that only the conflict of centrality would survive it. After two days of concentrated discussion, India and Pakistan could not agree on a set of words that would describe their respective core concerns - cross-border terrorism and Kashmir - well enough to satisfy them both. Gen. Musharraf and Mr. Vajpayee had one last farewell meeting late at night, but the task of salvaging something from the talks proved to be too difficult.

Sources say, the conflict on the wording of the draft Declaration was over how the contents of the document reflected each country’s core concerns. The finalisation of the joint Declaration had to be postponed first from 7.30 to 8.30 p.m. and then to 9.30 p.m. Sometime after the deadline passed, it was clear that the Declaration was dead on arrival.

As many as three draft documents were exchanged but at the end they failed to find a common language addressing their concerns. The first draft of the joint Declaration said that a solution to the Kashmir issue would pave the way for normalization of ties between the two countries. It was also decided that annual summit meetings would be held and the Foreign Ministers of the two countries would meet biannually to discuss peace, security and confidence-building measures: Kashmir and narcotics and terrorism. India then wanted a commitment in the Declaration that both countries would try to contain cross-border terrorism. Pakistan countered with the demand for a commitment that the Kashmir issue would be solved in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people. These clauses being unacceptable, it was decided that the earlier draft would stand. But, the Indian side said, the cabinet did not accept the earlier draft.

According to informed sources, India was prepared to accept Pakistan’s demand for an acknowledgement of the “centrality” of the Kashmir problem in bilateral relations and offered a mechanism to address it seriously. But, India wanted some movement on the Pakistani side too. In return for addressing Pakistan’s core political concern, India wanted Pakistan to deal seriously with the question of cross-border terrorism. Pakistan has never acknowledged its support to cross-border terrorism. But, Gen. Musharraf has argued that once substantive talks on Kashmir are initiated, they would have an indirect effect on the level of violence in the State. In short, he was linking the reduction of violence to progress in resolving the Kashmir dispute. But, India would want the commitment from Pakistan to be a little more credible than that.

India ultimately dropped insistence on the mention of the words “cross-border terrorism” in return for Pakistan dropping the reference to the “aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.” As the draft of the Agra Declaration was being gone through by the officials of the two countries, Indian side raised objections to the reference to the “settlement of the Kashmir issue” and Pakistan opposed inclusion in it of “narcotics and terrorism” as the key questions. According to sources, the preamble of the draft said that the two countries “agree that the settlement of the Kashmir issue would pave the way for normalization of relations between India and Pakistan” and that the two countries agree to hold annual summit and biannual meetings of Foreign Ministers to tackle the three issues of peace, security and CBMs, Kashmir, narcotics and terrorism.

According to reliable Pakistani sources, the document got bogged down with a serious of objections from the Cabinet Committee on Security comprising Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha and Defence and External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh. A draft finalized in the early part of the second day by the two leaders was changed and changed again following detailed objections raised by the Ministers, although Mr. Brajesh Mishra and Mr. Jaswant Singh remained neutral throughout the exercise. At the end, Mr. Advani and the others carried the day and ensured that the talks ended in a stalemate.

Pakistani officials, including military spokesman, Maj Gen. Rashid Qureshi, have since blamed an “invisible hand” for the failure of the summit. This hand, according to the Pakistanis, even made changes in pen on at least three drafts from the afternoon onwards. Supporting his charge, Mr. Qureshi said, “The joint Declaration had been approved by the President and the Prime Minister. The two Foreign Ministers had approved it. But, when they [drafts] came back from Indian officials, there were changes”. According to other Pakistani officials, the Indian side rejected a draft document three times insisting on the inclusion of the words “cross-border terrorism. According to Gen. Ghulam Ahmed, Chief of Gen. Staff to Gen. Musharraf, “We amended the draft three times on Indian demand but they continued to object. We did not have any choice left”. According to some unnamed Pakistani sources quoted by The TIMES of London, at the end of the fourth round of talks between Mr. Musharraf and Mr. Vajpayee, the two sides were “close” to an agreement but problems arose when India objected to the word “settlement” without a commitment from Pakistan to end “cross border violence”.

BJP sources, however, object to the Pakistani attempt to blame Mr. Advani for the collapse of the summit. They say, Mr. Advani was not alone to object to the first draft brought back by Indian officials and that his views were shared by External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh. In the first draft, Pakistan wanted India to recognize Kashmir as the “core issue” in the bilateral ties, but was unwilling to mention “cross-border terrorism” in the draft. It was ready to mention only “narcotics and terrorism” in place of “cross-border terrorism” to accommodate Indian sensitivities. When Mr. Advani saw the draft, he insisted that “cross-border terrorism” be included in it if Pakistan wishes India to accept Kashmir as the focal point. The fifth and final draft was ready for Gen. Musharraf’s approval. It was carried to him by Abdul Sattar and had it been cleared, the signing ceremony would have taken place at 8.30. While what transpired between the two is not known, Pakistan never conveyed approval of the final draft.

Some sources, however, say, the one-to-one meetings with Pakistan President Gen. Musharraf convinced Mr. Vajpayee that Gen. Musharraf lacked vision and did not look beyond short-term calculations. During the Agra summit, the Prime Minister briefed his Cabinet Committee on Security colleagues on his impressions when he said, he found Gen. Musharraf a slippery customer and would need firm tackling. In his assessment, Mr. Vajpayee felt that it may be wishful thinking to hold out any expectations from the military ruler of Pakistan. The General was counting on bluster to hustle an agreement out of the Indian side. so confident was the General that he would be able to wrest something out of the Indians that even when he called on the Prime Minister prior to his departure for Pakistan, he brought along a draft agreement. He was looking to see if Mr. Vajpayee was prepared to relent in any fashion and allow the Agra summit to yield “some” engagement.

The Prime Minister’s clear-eyed view of his guest at Agra saw the CCS taking a cautious view of what the General was offering and what he was claiming. The ministerial team felt that the breakfast interview was a “stealth” gambit that the General had sprung in a commando-like manner.



Sattar’s note that wrecked the summit

Indian sources, however, blame the hardliner Pakistan Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar for the collapse of the summit. Indian sources identify Abdul Sattar as the villain who sent a note to the Gen. Musharraf when he was engaged in one-to-one talks with Mr. Vajpayee. After Gen. Musharraf read the note, his tone became more strident and his focus shifted entirely to Kashmir. The summit suddenly seemed in danger of being derailed. Sources said, the morning session on July 16 went smoothly and Gen. Musharraf was jovial during the one-to-one meeting with Mr. Vajpayee. Although much of the time was spent discussing Kashmir, in the early afternoon, Information Minister Sushma Swaraj went on television to say what the two countries had discussed but avoided mentioning that Kashmir was one of them. By late afternoon, the talks were making little headway, but the atmosphere remained convivial. Then Mr. Sattar passed a note to the General saying that back home in Pakistan, people believed that Kashmir was being given short shrift. Gen. Musharraf had to do something. Mrs. Swaraj’s statement, broadcast by PTV, had exacerbated this sentiment.

According to informed sources, the messages being transmitted and referred to by Mr. Sattar in his famous note, are understood to have warned the Pakistan President that the atmosphere of goodwill abroad was developing into a storm at home and there was no way in which his writ would continue to run unless he returned with something substantial on Kashmir. Signals to that effect are believed to have emanated from two quarters: his powerful corps commanders and the clerics who wield influence, if not a high degree of control, with the Jehadis. The convergence of those views left him with little option but to change tack, taking the hardline on 16 July, the business end of the summit. Gen. Musharraf, in fact, was said to have been cautioned by both those entities in his pre-summit consultations that returning empty handed would be disaster and it would be advisable to break off the matter rather than accept a non-committal, even wishy washy, formulation that could be interpreted as compromising on the basics. There was to be no give-and-take solution. He acquiesced.

Gen. Musharraf’s geniality evaporated soon after he received the note from Abdul Sattar. Islamabad lodged a strong protest over Mrs. Swaraj. The Pakistani delegation developed a one-word vocabulary: Kashmir. The Indian side responded by insisting that Kashmir was an integral part of their country. A side meeting between the two Foreign Ministers made no progress. Thus, when Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf met again just after 7 p.m., the summit was growing fangs and scales. The Indian side disavowed Mrs. Swaraj’s statement but the two leaders still made no progress. Plans for a press statement at 9 p.m. were dropped. Mr. Vajpayee and Musharraf spoke again. The General said he could not go back to Pakistan without some sort of concession on Kashmir by India. Without it, there would be no joint statement or anything else. Mr. Vajpayee instructed his delegation to get a summit face-saver, however small. Great Expectations had developed into a Great Salvage Operation. The Pakistani delegation then released a midnight press release that attacked Mrs. Swaraj but praised Mr. Vajpayee. But, it said of Mrs. Swaraj’s interview: “She had omitted to mention the extensive discussions between the two leaders on Kashmir. Islamabad concentrated on telling the audience back home in Pakistan that Gen. Musharraf would not sell out on Kashmir. The attack on Mrs Swaraj became part of this. As also was the subsequent stress on Kashmir at the General’s breakfast with the editors.

While Mrs Swaraj was roundly criticized, others argued that once Pakistan decided the summit was going down badly at home, its delegation decided to find an excuse to bring Kashmir back on centre stage. They point to the remarkable ten-hour gap between Ms Swaraj’s statement and Pakistan’s response.

Mr. Abdul Sattar, whose note to Gen. Musharraf made the General turn tough, is well-known for hard-nosed diplomatic tactics and a deep dislike for India. He had a personal hand in the most controversial aspects of the present summit. Reportedly, he overrode the objections of Pakistan High Commissioner to India, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi over Gen. Musharraf meeting Hurriyat leaders. Pakistan’s vitriolic July 6 statement accusing India of various atrocities in Kashmir was Mr. Sattar’s handiwork. Mr. Sattar formed an alliance with Lahore Corps Commander, Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz, to push a hardline agenda in Agra. Mr. Sattar is a member of the Tehrik-e-Insaf, the Muslim fundamentalist party, nominally headed by Imran Khan but whose true head is the former ISI chief, Lt. Gen. [retd] Hamid Gul. Mr. Sattar, who served in New Delhi for seven years is a known manipulator of the egos of Indian politicians.



Pak swipe on Sushma Swaraj

Some Pakistani sources, however, laid the blame at the door of Information Minister, Mrs. Sushma Swaraj, for sabotaging the talks and creating anti-Musharraf opinion back in Pakistan by claiming that while issues of Indian interest were discussed by the two leaders, Kashmir was not. In her careless remarks, she said, cross-border terrorism, prisoners of war and trade were discussed, but she did not mention Kashmir as one of the items taken up by the two leaders. A group of Pakistani journalists who heard about Mrs. Swaraj’s briefing on the talks, rushed to the senior officials of Pakistani delegation accompanying Gen. Musharraf. The delegation was confronted with the question of how they were letting an Indian Minister get away with the impression that all subjects under the earth except Kashmir figured in the first day of talks. Gen. Musharraf himself happened to notice Mrs. Swaraj’s briefing being relayed on one of the television channels. He was furious about it and instructions were given to the Pakistan Information Secretary to correct the impression. Mr. Anwar Ahmed went on record contradicting the Minister. He took up the matter with Mr. Vajpayee too when they met for their pre-lunch session. Pakistan spokesman claimed, Kashmir had been the focus of discussion in the one-to-one meeting between the two leaders. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh was “livid with anger” at the total impropriety of what Mrs. Swaraj had done and it is believed that she was called by the Prime Minister who wanted to know from her as to what, or who, prompted her to make an appearance before television cameras at a critical moment in the summit.

Mrs Sawraj went around television studios explaining that she did not deliberately omit mentioning the discussion of Kashmir. “That was obvious; Kashmir was being discussed; why else did we invite Gen. Musharraf?”, she said. She never said Kashmir was not raised. She claimed she was trying to keep up the optimism about the summit.

But, many people in Agra, including political analysts, felt that the frank manner in which Gen. Musharraf spoke about the contentious issues between India and Pakistan at his breakfast meeting with editors on July 16 may have been the direct outcome of the Mrs. Sushma folly. He singled her out for the attack.



Musharraf’s “Breakfast meeting”

The “breakfast meeting” of Gen. Musharraf with Indian newsmen, however, did not go well with the Indian authorities. Billed initially as an informal chat with Indian journalists, the General turned it into a press conference revealing, on his part a military mindset: blunt, candid, intransigent, inflexible. One of the Indian editors, Vir Sanghvi, who attended the breakfast meeting with Gen. Musharraf, said there was a solitary PTV camera assuming that it was there for the purposes of record. Nobody on the Indian side convinced that they were the studio audience for the newest TV show: “Breakfast with Pervez”. Mr. Vajpayee, who has the reputation of mesmerizing millions by his oratory, was conspicuous by his silence in Agra. To everybody’s amazement on the Indian side, his breakfast with Indian editors, during which he spoke about what he thought of India’s approach to Kashmir, was put on television even though it was supposed to be off-the-record affair. It was then broadcast in Pakistan and India where private TV channels like Star News were given copies of videotapes of Gen. Musharraf’s encounter with Indian newsmen even as the two leaders were talking one-to-one and trying to narrow differences in the drafts of the joint Declaration. Political observers say, it is quite unprecedented for one of the parties to talks, in this case extremely delicate ones, to go public in the midst of them. Why did Gen. Musharraf do it at this point? Perhaps it was because he felt he was not going to get all that he wanted in Agra. Upset by reports that his domestic constituency had felt he was downplaying the Kashmir issue, the General dragged Kashmir into “everything”.

As soon as External Affairs Ministry officials chanced upon the televised breakfast being beamed across the world, they quickly informed their superiors that Gen. Musharraf had made known his mind and a broad framework of what he would put across to Mr. Vajpayee. As a foreign Ministry official said at Jaypee Palace hotel where the summit took place, “The moment we saw and heard that Gen. Musharraf had gone public with his agenda, we knew the talks would head nowhere and salvaging would be next to impossible. Sources say, Mr. Vajpayee himself took the opportunity to do some plain-speaking and told his guest Gen. Musharraf that his “live breakfast” had ended up vitiating the atmosphere of the summit. He informed the Pakistan President that there had been a very angry Indian public reaction to the televised breakfast. The manner and language utilized by Gen. Musharraf were quite out of place for the occasion where a top-level diplomatic exchange was taking place. Gen. Musharraf, however argued that in contemporary diplomacy “parallel” media exposure was necessary. To this, the Prime Minister pointed out that it was then quite difficult to understand the umbrage that the Pakistani side expressed over Information Minister Sushma Swaraj’s remarks on Doordarshan.

In his breakfast meeting with senior Indian journalists and editors, he reiterated his case that unless India acknowledged that Kashmir was the main issue of contention between the two countries, no progress could be made. He said, “If we do not face issues squarely, catch the bull by the horns, if we don’t put the horse before the cart, we cannot move forward”. He said, “Let us not remain under any illusion. The main issue confronting us is Kashmir. I am not saying anything that is unrealistic. That is the reality on the ground whether we like it or not.” He said, “if India expects that I should ignore Kashmir, then I can buy back Neharwali Haveli and live here.”

He made clear his preference in terms of the negotiating sequence on Kashmir. While he saw “step one” of the process being the initiation of a dialogue, he saw the next step “Step two”, as he called it, as the “acceptance of the reality that Kashmir was the main issue that had to be resolved.” In this, he said, there would have to be a structure of dialogue into which would have to be put in “an urgency”. In other words, he was calling for a timeframe for the structured dialogue on Kashmir. He reiterated that the people of Pakistan suspected that there was “a design” behind the Indian reluctance to acknowledge Kashmir as the main issue or as a dispute. He was even prepared to drop the insistence on the use of the word “dispute” in relation to the Kashmir issue and go along with “India’s preference” for the word “issue” as long as there could be some forward movement on the issue. He underlined once again that while he was not against moving forward on other issues such as trade and commerce, that could not happen when “political activity is at zero point”, there would have to be progress on all issues in tandem. “No leader in Pakistan can allow the sidelining of Kashmir”, he said.

Asked how he saw the fact that he was perceived in India as the architect of Kargil and how he expected India to get over the trauma of Kargil, Gen. Musharraf recalled the sense of pain and hurt in Pakistan from Indian actions in relation to the Mukti Bahini in 1971 and to the Siachen controversy. He said, “hurt and pain have been caused on both sides, we have to forget the past and move forward.” The General was not disconcerted when he was asked as to how he could show such a concern for the “will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir” when he did not seem to be worried about the will of the people of Pakistan. He said, elections would be held in Pakistan next year and that his present position had been “thrust” on him and he had the support of the majority of the Pakistani people.

The Pakistan President promised to personally have it examined whether there were still Indian PoWs in Pakistan jails. About the remarks of Mrs. sushma Swaraj, he expressed his regret that she had suggested that only trade, cross-border terrorism and the nuclear issues had been discussed in spite of the fact that most of his discussions with the Prime Minister had been spent on Kashmir.



PM statement

There were complaints in media circles that while Gen. Musharraf was using every occasion to steal the limelight and his aides were making selective leaks about the nature of the talks, the Indian officials were giving out little and Mr. Vajpayee himself was maintaining a stony silence. Some observers attributed it to the military background of Gen. Musharraf who had his first brush with politics only sometime back. But, it was stressed that unless the Indian side came up with its own version of what was happening behind the four walls of the Jaypee Hotel, India could be projected as uncompromising and intransigent. Already, an innocently-looking breakfast meeting of Gen. Musharraf with senior Indian scribes, which had been secretly filmed and then shown on news channels had done enough damage and shown the Indian side in a poor light.

So, as soon as the news of Gen. Musharraf speaking out his mind to Indian newsmen [and which was subsequently televised] at which he went on and on about how Kashmir was central to the relations between the two nations, reached Mr. Vajpayee, he ordered his opening statement at the plenary summit meeting with Mr. Musharraf to be released. In the statement, Mr. Vajpayee warned Musharraf that “terrorism and violence being promoted in the State [Jammu and Kashmir] from across the border do not help to create a conducive atmosphere.” “Let no one think that India does not have the resolve, strength or stamina to continue resisting terrorism and violence. But, they do not promote meaningful dialogue,” he added.

This would have made it quite clear that New Delhi was at pains to counter the impression in some quarters in Pakistan that the Indian Army’s “fatigue” in carrying out anti-militant operations was a key factor in influencing Mr. Vajpayee to extend an invitation to Gen. Musharraf. The Prime minister also subtly reminded his guest that there was growing international opinion against terrorism and violence. “We should not only adhere to our immediate need for peace and progress for our people but also to an international environment that increasingly stresses inter-dependence and cooperation over conflict and disorder.” Gen. Musharraf has been speaking about a “time-frame” and a “framework” to address the Kashmir issue. In his pre-summit statements, he expressed hope to return to Pakistan after having registered such tangible progress. Interestingly, the Prime Minister too spoke of a framework which “would have to include the issue of cross-border terrorism in its ambit.” He said, “We can always look at other confidence building measures to further engage this process.” He demanded the release of 54 Indian PoWs in Pakistani jails and the extradition of the hijackers of Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar and the terrorists involved in the Mumbai serial bomb blasts.



Inviation to PM and Foreign Minister

Pakistan, and of course, India, however did not wish to allow this breakthrough go up in smoke in spite of no progress having been made. Pakistan saw the invitation of Mr. Vajpayee to Gen. Musharraf and his willingness to at least talk on Kashmir as a big path-breaking event and through private diplomatic exchanges it was agreed that the Agra fiasco should not be treated as the end of the chapter. The invitation of the Pakistan President Gen. Musharraf to Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee, stands and before it the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, will visit Islamabad. This has been officially confirmed in New Delhi that he will go to Pakistan at a mutually convenient date. So, what could not be achieved in Agra, will be attempted once again when Mr. Vajpayee goes to Islamabad.



Lack of preparatory work

One of the reasons for failure of the summit is said to be the lack of preparations. The commando in Gen. Musharraf did not feel the necessary of pre-summit exercises and when the Indian authorities approached Islamabad for exchange of delegations to work out the agenda, it was conveyed by the Pakistan military ruler that there should be no structured agenda and the two leaders would just talk out their mind across the table. This was because Gen. Musharraf was coming with just one-point agenda - Kashmir - and all other issues for him were peripheral. The External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, in a post-mortem of the Agra summit disclosed that India had suggested some interaction between officials of the two countries preparatory to the meeting of the two leaders but Pakistan firmly repudiated the proposal, insisting that the summit must be unstructured and without any definite agenda. That insistence, as it transpired, was only a ploy by the General to aggressively pursue a single issue - namely, India’s acceptance of Kashmir as the core of the dispute.

Astonishingly, the astute General seemed to nurse the delusion that while he could bamboozle India into conceding his point, he could get away without accepting any responsibility for the cross-border terrorism. Having described terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir as “indigenous freedom fighters” whom he could not control, the General was trapped by his own hyperbole, resulting in the summit reaching a cul-de-sac. Political observers say before the two leaders meet again, probably on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in September, a great deal of groundwork would need to be done so that the next summit delivers concrete results.



Caravan of peace will go on : Narupama Rao’s remarks

There was a somewhat tacit understanding in Agra that the show must go on and the summit should not be advertised as a total collapse. After some cooling off period, another attempt should be made to pick up the broken threads after learning from the mistakes which led to the failure of the summit. A fresh beginning, of course, will be made when the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, visits Islamabad hopefully followed by Mr. Vajpayee, who has been formally invited by Gen. Musharraf and a written invitation is expected to be delivered through the Pakistan High Commission probably within a week. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Ms Narupama Rao told newsmen on July 18 that the engagement will continue and “the process of peace put in place at the initiative of the Prime Minister will proceed”. However, what left Pakistan dumbfounded was her remarks that since no declaration was signed at Agra because of differences, “We will, therefore, have to begin again on the basis of existing documents - the Simla and Lahore agreements, which form the cornerstones of India-Pakistan bilateral relations.”

Analysts interpreted Ms Rao’s statement as the Government’s formal acknowledgement that the Agra round of talks was not successful. Highly-placed government sources said, while a decision was taken in principle not to project the Agra summit as a failure and to continue the dialogue in the hope of a breakthrough, the strong response of Ms Narupama Rao was triggered by certain observations made by the Pakistan Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdul sattar, in his statement on July 17 where he listed topics which would compromise the structure for a “sustained” dialogue as well as the mechanism for carrying it forward. He had further observed that the draft declarations in Agra would further provide “a valuable foundation” for the two leaders to reach a full agreement.” The credence which Pakistan Foreign Minister placed on what he described as a “draft” agreement during his first post-summit press conference on July 17 was dismissed by Ms Rao saying “there was no closure and subscription by signature.”

India is furious that Mr. Sattar at his news conference revealed details of draft document the two sides were considering. “I would like to voice my astonishment at the technicalities disclosed by Mr. Sattar”, Ms Rao said.

The military establishment in Islamabad was dumbstruck at the u-turn by New Delhi on the Agra summit and believed that the latest stance adopted by India that the two countries should begin afresh with Simla agreement and Lahore declaration as the starting point, was a serious setback to the process of reconciliation and dialogue set in motion during the three-day visit of Gen. Musharraf.

Expressing disappointment over India’s decision to “disavow the understandings” reached between the two leaders at Agra, Islamabad on July 19 appealed to New Delhi to carry on the caravan of peace on the basis of progress made at the summit. In a statement, the Pakistan Foreign Office sought to contest the claim of Ms Narupama Rao, that since “ since no closure was reached on the text of the agreement, both sides would have to begin afresh on the basis of the existing agreements - the Lahore declaration and the Simla Agreement.” “We have moved forward at Agra and the journey should be continued”, the Foreign Office statement said.



Jaswant Singh\Abdul Sattar upbeat over summit results

The military establishment in Islamabad was taken aback by Ms Rao’s statement as only a day earlier, External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh had announced that India would pick up the threads from Gen. Musharraf’s visit and at a news conference in Islamabad the same evening, Pakistan Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, echoed the same sentiment and even spelt out the broad nature of the understanding arrived by both sides. Mr. Sattar not only talked of how close both sides came to an agreement on all major issues of concern between the two countries but also hinted at the possibility of an agreement when the two leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in September. Both Mr. Jaswant Singh and Mr. Abdul Sattar made spirited efforts to give an optimistic spin to the Agra summit. Not only they dismissed out of hand the very suggestion that they had ended in a failure, but both also bent over backwards to make precisely the opposite claim. The talks, they argued, in substance, had helped both countries to better understand their respective positions and that, in turn, had laid the foundations of a constructive engagement in the future.

Mr. Sattar termed the Agra summit as “inconclusive” and asserted that it was not a failure. He told newsmen that both sides were very close to adopting a joint declaration and twice it appeared that “we had succeeded in arriving at a mutually acceptable formulation. It is unfortunate that it was aborted”, he said. He, however, said the draft which was considered would serve as a “valuable foundation” for the two leaders to reach a “full agreement” at a future meeting. He said, “valuable progress” was made in Agra on evolving a structure for a sustained dialogue process that would take up Jammu and Kashmir, peace and security and terrorism and drug trafficking at the political level. “Economic and commercial cooperation, Siachen, Wullar barrage, Sir Creek and promotion of friendly exchanges in various levels will be addressed at the level of high officials”, he said.

Also seeking to dispel the widespread perception of a failure of the Agra summit, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said, the two nations covered considerable ground during the two days of Agra talks in finding a framework to deal with their bilateral differences. The principal message of Mr. Singh at a crowded press conference on July 17 at Agra was that India might have been disappointed but was not disheartened by the turn of events. He said the talks had provided valuable opportunity to both the leaders to understand each other’s “concerns and compulsions.” He proclaimed India’s readiness to “pick up the threads” from Gen. Musharraf’s visit and strive to realize “peace, friendship and cooperation with Pakistan”.

Although both Mr. Singh and Mr. Sattar maintained at their respective press conferences that the talks had made progress in evolving a structure for a dialogue process and that the threads would be picked up sooner rather than later, the substance of the two Ministers’ remarks indicate that there remain real differences between the two sides. Singh said that there was “difficulty in reconciling our basic approaches to bilateral relations. India was unable to agree with Pakistan’s unifocal approaches, namely its insistence that Kashmir is the central issue. According to Mr. Jaswant Singh, three issues seem to have created a deadlock. First, Pakistan’s unifocal emphasis on Kashmir. Second, differences between New Delhi and Islamabad over the importance and continued validity of the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore declaration and finally, deep differences over the question of cross-border terrorism, which is one of India’s core concerns. In other words, both sides reiterated their positions and Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Musharraf played to their respective domestic constituencies. They could hardly be expected to do otherwise after the Kargil war that followed the bonhomie in Lahore.

Sattar more or less confirmed that “the relation between the settlement of Kashmir question and the normalization of relations” was the reason why the two sides could not agree to a joint declaration. Despite these differences, Mr. Singh said that India will continue to promote the peace process with Pakistan.

The Pakistan High Commissioner in India, Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, has also said, his country has reached “a working understanding” with India at the Agra summit to move ahead on nine identified areas. On the achievements of the summit, he said, the top leaders of both countries have agreed to have summit meetings once a year, besides the Foreign Ministers, who were expected to meet twice a year. He said, the Pakistan President’s India visit had changed his image a great deal. In an interview with the News, a Pakistan daily, Mr. Qazi said, at the Agra summit, the two countries had selected three areas to be dealt with at the political level. Previously, all the three issues were clubbed along with the rest of the issues under the Indian framework of a “composite dialogue”. “Peace and security” were given the top priority in the list of issues drawn up by India for “composite dialogue”. But, thanks to the understanding reached in Agra, he said, Kashmir now gets the first place. Not only that, India and Pakistan will now discuss it at the political level, he claimed.



Kashmir cry at Musharraf’s press conference

Gen. Musharraf, who is very fond of giving press conferences and interviews parroted the “Kashmir, Kashmir” cry once again at a crowded press conference on his return to Islamabad at which many Indian journalists were also flown in. Making a repeat performance of his breakfast meeting with Indian journalists but with a difference, his Government even provided uplinking facility to all the representatives of the Indian television channels that had specially flown in for the event. At one stage, he said that the press conference was dedicated to the people of India, Pakistan and Kashmir, so that they could judge for themselves the outcome of the Agra summit. He perhaps found it fit to articulate his views in public after India had expressed inability to arrange for a press conference before he left Agra late at night on July 16.

Much of what the General said was a repetition of what he has been saying about Kashmir being central to India-Pakistan ties. He, however, hinted, without actually saying so, that India was not sincere. He argued in typical soldierly fashion, that if both countries had been sincere, a declaration could have been worked out in Agra in just half an hour. He left no one in doubt at the July 20 encounter with newsmen that in the perception of Pakistan, the summit was derailed by elements inimical to peace on both sides. He repeatedly talked about the “open-mindedness and reasonableness” of the Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee and External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, d at the summit, but refused to speculate as to why they could not succeed in endorsing the draft Agra joint declaration. While emphasizing that there could be no peace between India and Pakistan until the issue of Kashmir was settled to the satisfaction to all the three parties involved - India, Pakistan and Kashmiris - Gen. Musharraf chose not to comment on the reasons why India went back on the two agreed drafts of the declaration. His assertions, however, contained nothing new except for building up Pakistan’s case on Kashmir. He called the terrorists freedom fighters, alleged that widespread repression and killings were going on in Kashmir, called Kashmir the disputed territory, disputed the reference to cross-border terrorism saying while international border was peaceful, the trouble was only across Line of Control and not across the border. He called for involvement of the representatives of Kashmir at some stage in the resolution of the Kashmir problem. He denied that by not making a mention of UN resolutions or third party mediation to resolve the Kashmir problem, he was shifting away from the known policy stand of the country. He said, mediatory efforts should be tried if bilateral exercise failed. He stood by UN resolutions on Kashmir. He dismissed the Confidence-Building Measures announced by India and said, resolution of Kashmir was the most importance CBM. And he confirmed that the invitation to Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee stands despite failure of the Agra summit and the two leaders are likely to meet in New York as well on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in September.

Strongly reacting to Gen. Musharraf’s press conference, India rejected his assertion that Kashmir was a disputed territory and reiterated that the border State was an integral part of the country. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said, “the thesis advanced by Gen. Musharrraf that the State of Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory is totally not acceptable”. He added that Jammu and Kashmir “lies at the core of Indian nationhood”. Mr. Singh rejected Gen. Musharraf’s distinction between the international border and the Line of Control and said, “LoC is a treaty document and we have to agree to that.”



CBMs

Although Pakistan is not very enthused with the Confidence-Building Measures [CBMs] announced by India on the eve of the visit of Gen. Musharraf, unmindful of Islamabad’s cold response, India has indicated it would go ahead with their enforcement. The only commitment made by Gen. Musharraf was that in response to the appeal by the families of Indian soldiers missing in the 1971 war with Pakistan, he would order scanning of all Pakistani jails to see if any of them were still held as Prisoners of War. And if so, they would be released. The Prime Minister, in his talks with Gen. Musharraf, had spoken of some 54 Indian PoWs still languishing in Pakistani jails. In their initial investigations, however, Pakistan has not found any Indian PoWs in their custody. In another humanitarian gesture,, Pakistan has reciprocated Mr. Vajpayee’s gesture to release all Pakistani civilian prisoners. President Musharraf has ordered the release of 25 Indian civilian prisoners, now lodged in various jails in the country. Pakistan,m however, still holding some 240 Indian fishermen.

As for CBMs, especially the proposal to open some points along the Line of Control [LoC] and setting up visa posts for Pakistani nationals, the idea has not been approved of by the military and intelligence agencies. Sources say, a secret note from the Intelligence Bureau has recommended that these posts along the LoC are not feasible for security considerations as they fear under heavy fire from Pakistani security forces and militants and the liberal issue of visas and crossing the border into Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir could mean opening floodgates for terrorists from Pakistan in the guise of civilians.

Already, it has been noticed that terrorist killings in Kashmir saw a sudden spurt after the failure of the Agra talks. Jehadi outfits in Pakistan have vowed to step up attacks after India’s refusal to give in on the Kashmir issue. As Musharraf kept the subcontinent on virtual tenterhooks with his bellicose attitude towards Kashmir during the weekend, more than 80 persons, including many civilians, were killed by terrorists in the Valley. It was the highest toll of human lives since the Indian government had declared a ceasefire. On July 21, 13 persons, including six pilgrims to Amarnath pilgrimages were killed as militants set off two improvised explosive devices [IEDs] and clashed with security forces at Sheshnag, 19 km from the holy cave shrine in south Kashmir.



PM’s briefing to Cabinet and Opposition

The Vajpayee Government sought to contain the negative fallout from the Agra summit by summoning a meeting of the full Council of Ministers and a separate all-party meeting on July 17 and 19. However, at the Cabinet meeting, extensive explanations by both the Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister could not silence disconcerting voices within the Cabinet on the perceived failure of the talks. Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, suggested that there was little point in continuing the dialogue process with Pakistan after what happened at Agra, while the Shiv Sena leader and Industry Minister, Manohar Joshi disapproved of the idea of holding another summit. In Nagpur, the RSS spokesman, M.G. Vaidya said that unless Pakistan gave up its rigid stand on Kashmir, Vajpayee’s reciprocal visit would not bear any fruit.

At the all-party meeting, the Prime Minister, giving details of his talks with Pakistan President, said a joint declaration did not come about precisely because his Government was not ready to waver on the “national consensus” on issues of cross-border terrorism and Kashmir. He said, the Pakistan President stuck on Kashmir without agreeing to own up his responsibility on cross-border terrorism and that created a no-go situation resulting in the deadlock.

Mr. Jaswant Singh told the meeting that there was still no finality about his visit to Pakistan or Mr. Vajpayee’s talks with Gen. Musharraf at the UN. He said, while he had only accepted the invitation “in principle”, Vajpayee’s meeting at the World Body was still “under consideration”. He revealed that a “written agenda” had been sent to Pakistan in advance but the idea did not appeal to them. India had even proposed a pre-summit official level dialogue which too was not acceptable to Islamabad. The Government feels, the meeting was told, that Pakistan does not want to base Shimla or Lahore agreements and wants to begin afresh. Hence, it insisted on deciding the agenda at Agra itself, which turned out to be little else than making India accept Jammu and Kashmir as the main dispute between the two countries. The Prime Minister told the Opposition parties that Mr. Musharraf made it clear to him that normalization of Indo-Pak relations was not possible until Kashmir was resolved, a position unacceptable to India. Mr. Vajpayee told Gen. Musharraf that India was willing to discuss Jammu and Kashmir but not in isolation or as a pre-condition. Mr. Vajpayee also revealed that his insistence on having some mechanism to avoid a nuclear mishap did not impress the General even as this issue was not linked to Kashmir at all.

Briefing newsmen on the all-party meeting, Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr. Pramod Mahajan disclosed that the Prime Minister had taken strong objection to the General’s decision to turn the meeting with Indian editors into a PR exercise. Mr. Vajpayee bluntly told Mr. Musharraf that several points raised by him during the “breakfast show” were difficult to digest. His linking of the Kashmir issue to the Palestine struggle, describing violence in Jammu and Kashmir as “freedom movement” and comparison of Bangladesh war with Kargil were some issue Mr. Vajpayee strongly disapproved of.

The Opposition parties urged the government to be more careful in future as far as the use of media is concerned. Another point that emerged from the meeting was the need for a “structured agenda” before a summit. Mr. Vajpayee’s next engagement at a summit-level talks with Mr. Musharraf may now be linked to Pakistan’s acceptance of a structured agenda.

The Congress Party has blamed Pakistan’s “inflexibility and intransigent approach” for the disappointing outcome. The party spokesman also criticized the government’s “inadequate preparations” and its “inept handling of the summit”. the Samajwadi Party President, Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav attributed the summit failure to “diplomatic mishandling and absence of any ground work”. The BJP President, Jana Krishnamurthy, has held Gen. Musharraf’s utterances at the breakfast meeting with editors responsible for failure of the summit.



World reaction

Abroad, the US is not prepared to call the Agra talks a flop. The US is making the point that the Agra summit has to be seen in the perspective that the two sides were grappling with difficult issues that have divided them for more than five decades. State Department spokesman said, the Agra summit was a promising sign that the two parties had started to at least talk. At a meeting of the Indian American Friendship Council, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Ms Christina Rocca said, Washington strongly supports a sustained engagement between India and Pakistan at a senior level as that was the best way to settle long-term bilateral disputes and make real progress for the reduction of tensions in the sub-continent. Asia Society, a body based in New York, has said the Agra summit has reduced chances of Indo-Pak war.

In New York, the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said he views the summit as a first step towards resolving their differences. He said, it was unrealistic to expect big breakthroughs from an initial meeting. Russia has called the Agra summit “a step forward” and hoped that it will open the way to far-reaching agreement between the two countries. Britain welcomed the resumption of dialogue. Discounting the lack of even a diplomatic face-saver such as a joint declaration, the British Foreign Office said, it foresees great opportunities ahead.