India Proposes High-Level Talks with Pakistan
India has invited the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Salman Bashir to meet with his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao for talks later this month (Nirupama Rao has already met the Pakistani High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik to discuss the possibility of these talks). New Delhi has indicated that it is willing to discuss any issue that Pakistan raises.
Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mehmood Qureshi added his own spin on the issue by claiming that “Pakistan did not bow before India. In fact, it was Islamabad’s stance that brought India to the negotiating table”. He did not clarify what were the steps taken by Pakistan that eventually “brought” India to the negotiating table. This is not the tone you expect from the minister just after Pakistan canceled the “Pakistan Day” parade due to security reasons for the third consecutive year.
Many sources including the Washington Post has reported that India and Pakistan engaged in three years of top secret talks and narrowly missed signing a history agreement due to the political challenges faced by the then Pakistan President Prevez Musharraf. These talks started in 2004 and ended in 2007 with a broad agreement on the Kashmir issue. So a high level frame work for a possible solution already exists (the current Pakistan Foreign Minister has denied any knowledge of these talks).
So far none of the major Indian opposition parties have reacted to the offer. But it can be assumed that the pressure will be applied on the Indian government to limit the conversations to the issue of terrorism alone. But there is no incentive for Pakistan to come to the negotiating table if it is going to be about terrorism alone. The question of Kashmir should definitely be on the negotiating table.
The trade between India and Pakistan is very low (less than $10 billion) compared to the potential (there is a large black market economy between these two nations). Pakistan, like most of India’s neighbors has not benefited a lot from India’s economic growth. India has so far focused on the United States, Western Europe and China for growth and has largely ignored its neighbors. Opening the Indian economy to Pakistan and allowing and encouraging Indian companies to invest in Pakistan are great “carrots” that India can offer to Pakistan during these talks.
Many experts in India and the abroad have used the question of Pakistani “leadership” as a reason for not engaging in talks. The question normally raised is who will your talk with and ultimately come to an agreement with? Is it the military, the ISI or the government? By repeatedly phrasing the question this way the world in fact is making the Pakistani political leadership weaker.
The reality is that on issues that involve major military, economic and strategic issues there will be many players who will have to be placated. This is true between India and Pakistan and between the United States and Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact if the Democrats want to pass the health care bill who do they talk to on the Republican side?
Unlike some in the West who see doom and gloom ahead people in countries like India and China think that the best days are ahead of them. But India cannot reach its full potential without making peace with Pakistan or ignoring the issue altogether.
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Category: News & Government