As the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India meet in New Delhi today (Wednesday) to discuss ways for the settlement of Kashmir and other bilateral disputes and push forward the years-long peace process, some headway is expected in confidence building measures but no breakthrough is likely on the core issue of Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek and other major disputes.
A day ahead of Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar’s meeting with her Indian counterpart SM Krishna, Pakistani and Indian foreign secretaries on Tuesday chalked out the agenda for the ministerial meeting. They gave finishing touches to some new Kashmir confidence-building measures (CBMs) such as launching of new Skardu-Kargil bus service and increasing the frequency of trade days on the Line of Control (LoC). According to an official spokesman in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, the two foreign secretaries finalised a slew of CBMs. Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir had “very cordial and positive discussions” and reviewed the progress between various ministries and organisations of the two countries in the preceding months. He said the two officials would brief their respective ministers of their discussions ahead of Wednesday’s (today’s) meeting. In spite of some progress likely to be made in the sphere of CBMs between the arch rival nuclear nations and that too related to Kashmir, the two foreign ministers are unlikely to make any headway in their talks on the core dispute of Kashmir.
Diplomatic circles in Islamabad say that the same is the case with other major issues on the composite dialogue agenda such as Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage and trade and commercial ties. One major reason for no progress on Kashmir and other important matters is India’s insistence in the wake of Mumbai attacks of 2008 that the talks should be focused on terrorism and peace and security more than Kashmir but Pakistan is not ready for that. Hence, terrorism and India’s obsession with it continues to haunt the Indo-Pak peace process despite New Delhi’s repeated announcements in the wake of restoration of peace process, which got derailed by the Mumbai attacks, that in future no act of terror would disrupt the dialogue between the South Asian neighbours. In the aftermath of the revival of stalled peace process last year, the officials from Islamabad and New Delhi have held talks on various issues on the composite dialogue agenda during the last six months. However, no progress has been made apart from announcements by two sides to continue with the dialogue. A Pakistani diplomat requesting anonymity said the readiness showed by New Delhi a couple of years after the Mumbai attacks was because of strong nudging by the US.
