- Basit says talks, preconditions can’t go together
- HC suggests structured initiative on front channel
- ‘Hurriyat represents political aspirations of Kashmiris’
- ‘We can think about back channel after formal dialogue’
Reiterating Pakistan’s position that talks and preconditions cannot go together, High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit hoped that bilateral talks between the two countries would resume in the near future.
As he ends his stint, he talks about need for a structured initiative on the front channel. In an interview with The Hindu newspaper, he calls for keeping the door open to all possibilities. Abdul Basit’s tenure as Pakistan’s high commissioner to India began in March 2014.
The last three years have seen many low points in bilateral ties – from the cancellation of the secretary-level talks in August 2014 following Basit’s invitation to Hurriyat Conference leaders to a near-freeze in dialogue over ‘cross-border’ attacks.
However, Basit believes that the agreement between the two sides on a framework for comprehensive dialogue in December 2015 was a silver lining. When asked about the cricket and rivalry between the two neighbours, he remarked that Pakistan and India should play cricket and other sports too.
“If we put off all sporting ties until we solve our problems, that wouldn’t be wise. These events do help create a better environment and we need that,” he said. To another question, he said that sports and politics should be kept separate, and Pakistan has been proposing and suggesting cricketing ties and others throughout.
“So our position is very clear,” he said. “We were hopeful because our prime minister (Nawaz Sharif) took a very bold decision to travel to India in May 2014, but after that the process got stuck. In December 2015, the two countries were able to agree on a framework to restart talks and on the comprehensive bilateral dialogue,” he said about the relations during his three years tenure.
“Now, whenever the two sides agree to talk to each other, at least we wouldn’t be spending too much time finalising the modalities for talks,” he added. “In diplomacy, you cannot simply lock the door and throw the key away. You have to keep the door open for possibilities. I am hopeful that Pakistan and India will talk to each other, but whether it happens now or two years down the road, I do not know.”
When asked that the Indian government holds him responsible for closing one door and crossing a ‘red line’ by inviting Hurriyat leadership for meetings in 2014, just before the India’s foreign secretary was leaving for Pakistan, he said no Pakistan has been engaging with the Hurriyat, and “we never thought it should be a problem, and still don’t. But since then too, we have been meeting the Hurriyat leadership and there has been no problem.”
He also said that the meetings should be seen in a constructive way, as it helps us find a just and fair solution to the long-standing dispute over Jammu Kashmir. “Pakistan’s position is that Hurriyat represents the political aspirations of the Kashmiri people, and that’s why these talks are necessary,” he argued.
“We in Pakistan strongly feel that talks and preconditions do not go together. India has a different position. Now terrorism is also a big issue for us, and in Pakistan, (Indian Navy) Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav’s conviction has proven our concerns. We aren’t shying away from issues like terrorism. But even when you look at the Mumbai or Pathankot attacks, if you want to conduct a proper trial, the two countries would need to cooperate with each other,” he said when asked how Pakistan can resume talks with India.
But this cooperation cannot take place in a void or a vacuum, he said. “Without talking, how can you realistically expect these issues to come to a close? I feel that now that we have a framework under which to resume talks, it is just a matter of time,” he said. He was of the view that the issues remain the same. “No matter how much you fiddle with this framework, you will end up coming to the same issues,” he said.
“Obviously, we don’t expect overnight results, but our engagement must not be interrupted. Only then can we move beyond this environment of accusations,” he said. “We have not seen much progress in the 40-plus years since the Shimla Agreement (1972) on bilateral talks. If there is no movement on the bilateral front, you cannot expect Pakistan not to even discuss that with the rest of the world,” he said when asked if Pakistan was constantly looking for a third party.
“Jammu Kashmir is central to Pakistan-India relations, and we feel that is the root cause of all our problems,” he said. The UN Security Council in its resolution 1172 of June 1998 stated that Pakistan [and India] should resolve their bilateral disputes, including Jammu Kashmir. “So the international community is aware of the problem,” he said.
In a recent interview to The Hindu newspaper too, the Saudi ambassador here showed an interest in facilitating dialogue between Pakistan and India, he said. “We do not see any move on the part of New Delhi to reach out for a structured dialogue with us,” he pointed out. “I haven’t seen any move to hold the SAARC summit yet,” he said about the Indian concerns and holding of SAARC process.
“This hasn’t happened for the first time, and SAARC has been held up before. We wouldn’t like the process to suffer, as all the countries in South Asia have invested a lot in it. There is no proposal under consideration to move the venue, and Pakistan will host the 19th SAARC summit, whenever that happens,” he asserted.
On a question on Jadhav case, he said there was a process that was ongoing, and if Jadhav’s appeal were rejected [by the court], that would be the time for the army chief or the president to reconsider the sentence against him. “He (Jadhav) has been tried, he has been convicted, and he has the right to appeal. If that is rejected, then he has the right to submit an application for clemency. So there is room for a rethink there,” he said.
Abdul Basit said that there was no back channel between Pakistan and India. “We must first think of a formal structured dialogue and then we can think of a back channel,” he added. Referring to progress between the two countries during 2000 to 2008, he said even at that time, the back channel was in parallel to a front channel process, so that was a different phase in the relationship.
On a question on Kashmir, he said that as far as Islamabad was concerned, no solution was acceptable unless it was acceptable to the Kashmiri people. Any other solution would fall apart very quickly, he said. He said that most of the Pak-India diplomatic processes were consumed by these perennial gridlocks like some terror activity just before the dialogues.
