Haritha's Musings: Curtains drawn over NSA Level Talks

The NSA level talks between India and Pakistan after hitting a Shakespearean dilemma has entered into imperturbable phase of stern talk. It has finally hit the logjam with Pakistan calling off the talks (1). Political slug fest which initially eroded the veracity of the issue was steered into a suddenly dominated by redlines drawn by Sushma Swaraj, who clearly enunciated of the guidelines of the talks. Her presser literally sealed off scope for arguments by loose cannons on either side. India reminded Pakistan of the agreed agenda of the talks and reiterated that it wouldn’t budge from its stance. New Delhi maintained that talks would be on matters related to terrorism and that it will be between the NSA’s of both countries and hence intervention of a third party is strictly prohibited.

The uninterrupted trail of ceasefire violations that began days after the Ufa talks and continued through the Independence Day celebrations of both the nations and later, have reached crescendo warranting serious attention. As the time for the talks between the Security Advisors of both countries is nearing more noxious attempts to abort them are ratcheted up by the Pakistani side.

The unnecessary drama cropped up by virtue of the needless extrapolation and variegated interpretation of the joint statement released at Ufa by the Pakistani side. While the two Prime Ministers have agreed along the margins of SCO to have talks on terror Pakistan has intentionally sidelined the guidelines by raising the invincible Kashmir issue. This is not first time talks between the two nations are on the verge of standoff, this tenor has been in vogue since 1990 (2). In 1999, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee made stupendous efforts to bring about peace between the nations and started a bus service between Delhi-Lahore. Vajpayee too travelled to Lahore in February and both nations signed the illustrious Lahore Declaration to uphold peace and stability between the countries. This declaration significantly raised hopes about peaceful resolution of disputes between the nations. But the Indian peace efforts were sabotaged within couple of months by massive infiltration bids by Mujahideen that escalated into Kargil war. In fact it has been become compulsive obsession of Pakistan to annihilate the initiatives for dialogue and peace talks.

Emphatically this time around Pakistan has played every trick in the book to shelve down the NSA talks. This trend has been evident from the untenable escalation of cease fire violations along the LoC and International Border. The horrendous terrorist attacks in the suburban district of Gurdaspur and killing of civilians in Udhampur threatened to erode peace talks. In the meanwhile, capture of live Pakistani trained terrorist Naveed added much weight to India’s claims of cross border terrorism perpetrated by Pakistan which in turn vehemently rejected New Delhi’s assertions. Propitiously India just before NSA talks managed to uncover the surreptitious claims of Pakistan about Dawood Ibrahim, the organiser and financier of Mumbai blasts. According to an investigation report, Dawood cowering in Pakistan has three dubious passports and nine residences across the country (3). India has now prepared a dossier with all the relevant evidences. Dawood was declared as global terrorist by US State Department in 2003 but Pakistan deliberately didn’t issue red corner notice and refused to take action against him. While there are mounting evidences against Pakistan for sponsoring, patronising and providing safe havens to terrorists it adamantly evades straight questions and lives in denial.

By now Pakistan should have understood the intentions of the NDA government headed by Modi from the predicament of cancellation the foreign secretary level talks between the countries following Pakistani High Commissioner’s rendezvous with Hurriyat leaders. While Modi hasn’t missed an opportunity to communicate with his counterpart in Pakistan he has set a red line by indicating that talks would be between the governments and that Hurriyat has no place on negotiation table. Thereby the message is loud and clear. In order to put the onus of calling off talks on India Pakistan invited Hurriyat leaders for NSA talks saying that they are equal stakeholders.

In the meanwhile the Indian U-turn of initially keeping the Hurriyat leaders under house arrest and then releasing them within 170 minutes created lot of commotion and generated lot of political dissonance within the country. Pakistan then made Hurriyat leaders presence as precondition for talks. The real breakthrough and tough talking by Indian side cleared the cloud and finally Pakistan called off the talks.

With sparring hitting a new high, NSA talks would have definitely failed to achieve any breakthrough and would have remained a non event. But they could have set a ground for future dialogue. Though the calls have been called off it is highly pertinent to discuss the new found resilience displayed by Pakistan. South Asia is literally simmering under the burden of homebred and viciously patronised terrorism. The unabated violence and the rejuvenated intensity of the Taliban attacks in Afghanistan are sending alarm bells. Pakistan which promised the big brother US shouldered the responsibility of sweeping off the mess in the Afghan following the slow retraction of NATO troops. It then roped in China and deliberately sidelined India in the process of initiation of peace talks between Talibans and the Afghan government. In the meanwhile startling details began to emerge as the peace process began with Pakistan declaring the death of Taliban Chief Mullah Omar. This incident threw light on the unity of Taliban as reports indicated that under the Pakistan’s reinstated leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Mansour, the organisation began to disintegrate since the new leader doesn’t have approval of all the cadres. Meanwhile, Afghan president Mohammed Ashraf Ghani totally reposed faith in Pakistan’s mediation and expected that conditions would improve. (Instead situation began to deteriorate as Pakistan failed to rein in on various factions of Taliban). With two superpowers (Russia in the late 90’s and US rather recently) wresting their control off the Afghanistan, Pakistan is feeling empowered. With US getting ready for Presidential elections its approach towards Afghanistan has become disoriented.

Pakistan was invigorated with President Obama proposing to dispense a financial bounty of $1 billion in April 2015. This was followed by $46 billion investment promise by China in development of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It recently hit upon a jackpot with reports indicating Russia under burgeoning financial pressure agreed to sell 4 Mi-35 military helicopters to Pakistan besides building a $2 billion worth natural gas line to Islamabad (4). Together these propitious developments ushered Pakistan to step up its ante against India.

In fact the tide began to turn around and Pakistan is failing to decipher the ominous signs. In a strong worded message to Pakistan Afghan President questioned the commitment of Pakistan and opined that it is better off without its intervention (5). He lambasted Pakistan of nurturing terror havens and for patronising the Taliban insurgents. The US too is disappointed with Islamabad for failing to reign on Haqqani network and refused to certify its counter-terrorism operations. This may consequentially result in halting of release of new tranche of financial aid to Pakistan from Coalition Support Fund (CSF) (6). Perhaps, taking cognisance of souring relations with the US, Russia might have agreed to deliver military helicopters. While this sudden change of stance by Russia might definitely hurt Indian interests, New Delhi hasn’t responded to it as of now. Interestingly, Modi’s recent visit to UAE has opened new vistas of strategic cooperation and the joint statement on terrorism suggested that both nations are on same page. India has now become increasingly assertive. Unlike his predecessors Modi refuses to accept no-nonsense. His bold move against Hurriyat definitely reflected the muscularity of government and in fact sent a strong message across border. Despite the acrimony caused by calling off talks, it will be no surprise if Modi calls upon Nawaz Sharif at UN General Assembly meetings.

Haritha's Musings

Sunday 23 August 2015

Curtains drawn over NSA Level Talks

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