Indo-Pak Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Italy,Indian Subcontinent, News Analysis, India News Online

Ahead of a meeting of their Foreign Secretaries before the two Prime Ministers meet again at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt on the sidelines of the NAM summit, which will decide the next course in the stalled Indo-Pak dialogue, their Foreign Ministers met in Trieste, Italy, on June 26. External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmud Qureshi, were in Trieste to take part in a conference on the rise of militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan to coincide with the Group of Eight Foreign Minister’s meeting there on June 26-27. The two-day conference focused on the promotion of peace and stability in Afghanistan with the help of its neighbours. It also discussed issues such as border security, drug trafficking and economic development. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and some other countries were also invited to the conference.

Krishna told newsmen after his talks with Qureshi that they reviewed the current status of Indo-Pak relations which, he noted, had remained under considerable stress. “The primary cause of this,” he said, “is the terrorist attacks on India by elements based in Pakistan.” He said he conveyed to Qureshi the sentiments of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that “India stands ready to meet Pakistan more than half way to utilize and harness the vast potential in their relations for mutual benefit.” But at the same time, the issue of why the relations have come under stress recurrently, needed to be addressed, he added.

In New Delhi, the Pakistan High Commissioner to India, Shahid Malik, met Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon on June 23 to discuss the proposed meeting of the two Foreign Secretaries as mandated by Dr. Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari when they met in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on the margins of the SCO summit on June 16. It was decided at Yekaterinburg that before the leaders of the two countries hold another round of talks during the NAM summit, their Foreign Secretaries, Menon and Salman Bashir, would discuss Islamabad’s desire for resumption of talks and the Indian demand to ensure that the Mumbai-type terror attacks do not recur and Pakistan honours its commitment not to allow its territory to be used for terrorist attacks against India.

Incidentally, on Zardari’s return to Islamabad, the Government announced that the Pakistani delegation to the NAM Summit would be led by the Prime Minister and not the President. This was viewed Islamabad’s way of protesting over Dr. Singh’s remarks before the international media just before the talks in Yekaterinburg that he had just a limited mandate to talk to Zardari about terrorism directed at India from Pakistani soil. Informed sources linked the decision of Zardari to send Prime Minister Gilani instead to Dr. Singh’s remarks though it was denied by the Pakistan Presidential spokesman and others.

Based on the report by Menon and the advice of Krishna, the Manmohan Singh Government may take a decision to resume the composite dialogue suspended after the Mumbai terror attacks. Backed by the US, the Pakistan Government is feverishly demanding its resumption which India has so far resisted.

The Prime Minister said on June 22 India was open to resuming the talks if Islamabad created a congenial atmosphere. He said this during a meeting with a Jammu and Kashmir CPI[M] leader in New Delhi.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony has made it clear that peace with Pakistan cannot be a “one-way traffic”. It hinged upon Pakistan taking action against groups operating from its territory. This was a “pre-condition”, said Antony while speaking to newsmen after he addressed the top brass of the Indian armed forces at the Unified Commanders’ Conference in New Delhi on June 25. Besides the Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force, about two dozen Commanders attended the conference, the first such meeting after the Mumbai attacks in November last year. He said India had repeatedly told the US that aid to fight terror was being misused by Pakistan to develop India-centric warfare capabilities. Pakistan has been unable to check terrorists originating from its soil and infiltrating into Jammu and Kashmir, Antony said.

It is notable that the composite dialogue got its name from the outcome of a set of negotiations between India and Pakistan in the mid-1990s. New Delhi wanted Islamabad to discuss the end of cross-border terrorism, while the latter insisted that nothing could be done without movement on Jammu and Kashmir. In 1998, when the talks resumed after the Indo-Pak nuclear tests, it was decided to take up these issues and lump the other outstanding subjects held over from the 1980s – Siachen, Wullar Barrage and so on - under the rubric of what began to be called “composite dialogue”. India and Pakistan have more or less resolved the Siachen and Sir Creek disputes. But because of the larger gridlock and the political meltdown in Pakistan, the two sides are not able to declare their success and move ahead.

The talks have also aided in opening up the Indo-Pak border, both across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the international border. Even on Jammu and Kashmir, the two countries have arrived at a formulation that India could live with. But on terrorism, there remained a tentativeness which has manifested itself in the manner in which Islamabad has dealt with the Mumbai episode.

The question now is: whether Pakistan can move ahead because the man with whom India was on the verge of finalizing the formula, Former President Pervez Musharraf, has been ejected from the Pakistani polity. There are two issues of immediate concern. First, is it worthwhile to discuss the Kashmir issue with the Pakistan Government? Zardari has displayed a positive approach his country’s relations with India. But, unlike Musharraf, his authority in Pakistan rests on very shaky foundations indeed. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is already being spoken of as the most popular politician in the country. The Pakistan Army has given no indication that it is for a continuation of Musharraf’s initiatives about India. Second, will continuing the dialogue help in the project of getting Pakistan to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure? There is every indication that it won’t. The infrastructure came up to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and later to push the GHQ’s policy of strategic depth in Afghanistan vis-à-vis New Delhi as well as the policy of bleeding India through proxy war. But today it has taken on a life of its own and parts of it have gone rogue.

Terror training camps across border – MAC report

New Delhi has enough reasons to link the resumption of talks with Pakistan stopping the use of its territory for terrorist attacks on India. The latest assessment of the Multi-Agency Centre [MAC], the nodal agency for all terror-related intelligence under the Home Ministry, says there are 34 “active” and “holding” camps operational across the border. Pakistan/Northern Areas and Pak-occupied Kashmir have 17 “active” and four “holding or dormant” camps. The MAC’s assessment is based on inputs from RAW, the Intelligence Bureau and the National Technical Research Organization, among others. “It is estimated that around 2,200 militants are housed in these camps. After 26/11, many of these camps were emptied out or relocated. Some are back to their original status now, while new ones have also come up”, said on official. With the Prime Minister declaring that India wants Pakistan to take “strong, effective and sustained action” against the terror networks before it decides on resuming the composite dialogue process, these camps and their masterminds behind the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai are being tracked closely.

While Pakistan is taking steps to crack down on the Taliban-Al-Qaeda nexus, faced as it is with unrelenting heat from the US, the jihadi factory against India continues to run with impunity. As per the MAC assessment, of about 2,200 militants in the camps spread across Pakistan, around 300 belong to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, 240 to the Jaish-e-Mohammed and 130 to the HuJI, while the rest have mixed origin. The “active” camps in PoK include those in Kotli, Garhi Dupatta, Nikial, Sensa, Gulpur, Forward Kahuta, Peer Chinasi, Jhandi Chauntra, Bhimbher, Barnala, Skardu, Adullah Bin Masud, Tattapani, Samani and Shavai Nallah.

New JuD outfit – Mumbai court warrants against Saeed

In spite of promises it made, Pakistan has so far not filed an appeal against Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the prime accused in the Mumbai terror attacks who was set free by the Lahore High Court earlier this month because the prosecution did not produce any evidence linking him to the attacks although India had provided a huge dossier to the Pakistan Government proving his involvement, among others.

Now, Saeed has floated a new front, Falah-i-Insaniyat to raise funds on the pretext of providing humanitarian relief for those displaced by fighting in Swat and Waziristan. He also met the Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin and pledged support in the combat for Kashmir. Salahuddin is also chairman of the Muttahida Jehad Council (MJC) - a conglomerate of Jihadi groups waging terror in Kashmir. It was also attended by other office-bearers of the MJC like Muhammed Usman and Sheikh Jamil-ur-Rehman besides JuD leaders like Maulana Amir Hamza, Yahya Mujahid and Maulana Hussain Siddiqi. Indian agencies suspect that Falah-i-Insaniyat funds would be used to fund terrorist activity in Kashmir.

In order to further delay action against those named by India, Pakistan is asking India for still more information on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters in Islamabad on June 23 that “in order to proceed further [in the probe into the Mumbai attacks], we will send more queries to India”. Sources in the Pakistan Interior Ministry claim that last year’s Mumbai attacks and the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauta Express train were linked. This was one of the reasons why Pakistan would send another set of queries to India seeking more information about the Mumbai attacks, the sources claimed.

Pakistan will now be under more pressure to take action against those named in the Mumbai terror attacks. A special court in Mumbai has issued non-bailable warrants against 22 absconding accused in the 26/11 terror attack. They include the LeT founder and JuD head, Hafiz Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, At least three high-ranking Army officers figure in the list. The warrants issued by the Mumbai court on June 23, will not only serve as additional evidence for the police in Pakistan to arrest and prosecute them, but will also enable the Indian authorities to approach the Interpol to have the red-corner notices issued against them. The special court dropped the names of five wanted Pakistanis – Abu Anees, Abu Bashir, Abu Saif-ur Rehman, Abu Anjla Pathan and Abu Imran. Most of the 22 names were given by lone arrested terrorist Aamir Kasab in his confessional statement. Other names like Pakistan Army officer Col. R. Sadatullah [retd], Javed, who paid for the voice-over Internet protocol [VoIP] address, had come from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The warrants against the above suspects could pressure Islamabad because a red corner notice could be issued by the Interpol and, unlike in the case of Dawood Ibrahim, Pakistan would not be able to claim that senior Army officers named in the warrants were not in the country. After the Mumbai attacks, New Delhi had made several requests to Islamabad to extradite some of these suspects. The requests were based on the Pakistan Extradition Act of 1972 and in a prescribed format for States that did not have an extradition treaty with Islamabad. But, Pakistan flatly rejected these requests. In the past too, India had pressed Pakistan to hand over about 40 fugitives, including Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar and Let founder Hafiz Saeed, who are wanted for terror acts in India. In a demarche served to Pakistan after 26/11, New Delhi had again demanded the handing over of key terrorists, including Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Menon and Azhar. But, the current move signifies a renewed seriousness of intent. By charging the Mumbai suspects in a court of law and then issuing non-bailable warrants, New Delhi is plugging what it considers is a loophole in its dealings with Islamabad on this subject.

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