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Indo-Pak ties on the edge despite Havana parleys |
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Harjit Singh
India’s relations with Pakistan are likely to sour further in the coming weeks despite the Havana agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Pakistan President, Gen. Musharraf to set up an anti-terrorism institutional mechanism. While the level and scope of the mechanism and the modalities of its functioning are still to be discussed at the coming Foreign Secretary-level talks hopefully to be held in November, the Pakistan President’s statements while on an extended tour of the United States to promote his just released autobiography “In the Line of Fire” and the investigation report by the Mumbai Police into the July 11 Mumbai blasts, which killed more than 150 people, do not augur well for the efforts to repair the ties. The mechanism itself has come under attack from various quarters who say that Pakistan’s earlier record of not standing by its agreement to stop terrorism emanating from its soil was not encouraging for reaching a new understanding. “The leopard never changes his spots”, say the critics of President Musharraf’s off-again-on-again behaviour.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself is being accused of not having waited for the Mumbai probe to be completed before making friendly overtures to Pakistan like agreeing on the proposed anti-terror mechanism, resumption of the Foreign Secretary-level talks and visiting Pakistan at an appropriate time. The disclosures made by the Mumbai Police Chief leave little for the imagination as far as Pakistan’s official involvement in the carnage is concerned. Based on the interrogation of the arrested, he has given the minutest of details like how the train blasts plan was conceived by Pakistan’s intelligence outfit, ISI, planned and executed by Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed with activists of the banned SIMI in India. Since two of those arrested have confessed their involvement and have turned approvers, they are likely to spill the beans further on the ISI connection.
New Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon has said, India will take up with Pakistan the investigation findings but Pakistan has already said that even if those involved in the Mumbai blasts are found to be in Pakistan, they will not be handed over – a strange way of offering to cooperate with the investigation - if India gave proof.
The Prime Minister who raised hackles by calling Pakistan a victim of terrorism instead of the sponsor and promoter of terrorism, has now said, cooperation in dealing with the menace would be a test of Pakistan’s commitment made by Musharraf in Havana.
The Pakistan President has further tied himself in knots by the lies that he incorporated in his book “In the Line of Fire”. The jury is out about at least three references to India that he made in the book. One of these is the claim that it was India and not Pakistan which was responsible for sparking tension on the Line of Control which ultimately led to the Pakistani intrusion into Kargil and eventually the involvement of its army. This prompted Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee to say that this is the first direct admission by Musharraf that the Kargil war was fought by the Pakistan army and not the so-called Mujahideen and the Jihadis, as he has claimed in the past. Yet another Musharraf lie was that the Agra summit collapsed because some power working above the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee sabotaged it – a reference to his then hardline Home Minister, L.K. Advani. This claim too has been rubbished by Vajpayee who has blamed President Musharraf’s refusal to mention the word “terrorism” in the joint statement for the collapse of the summit. Yet another ridiculous claim has been that India benefited from the uranium enrichment technology perfected by its tainted nuclear scientist Dr. A.Q. Khan and the Indian scientists working on a nuclear facility set up by Khan in UAE escaped with blueprints.
Statements and unsubstantiated claims of this type cannot be helpful for the resumption of the composite dialogue Pakistan has consistently sought ever since India suspended it after the Mumbai blasts. The developments that have taken place since their Havana meeting and the howl of protests at home about Dr. Singh’s concessions to the Pakistani leaders are unlikely to take the Indo-Pak relations further on the road to normalisation and improvement.
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