- And not one to learn
It is still not clear what made Foreign Minister Kh Asif come down so hard on NSA Gen Nasser Janjua for meeting India’s high commissioner in Pakistan. While he has yet to make his mark as an effective foreign minister, Kh Asif already stands out for statements that contradict his own government’s positions. He had everybody from Rawalpindi to Islamabad running for explanations when he offered his own wisdom about the Afghan deadlock soon after taking over the foreign ministry. And he may well have thrown a monkey wrench into a delicate plan to revive the peace process now with his outburst about the NSA.
It is understandable that Kh Asif’s election campaign compulsions – representing a constituency so close to the border – force him, to an extent, to take a tough line on India, especially because of the brutal state violence unleashed in Kashmir for the last few years. But as a senior minister he should know where to draw the line between populist politics and interfering with the government’s position on a very important matter. First Pakistan suffered, for much of this PML-N government, from not having a dedicated foreign minister. Now, it seems, in the final run we will suffer from having the wrong man for the job. And it’s not as if Asif’s handling of the defence and power ministries made any case for the elevation to the more sensitive foreign portfolio.
More importantly, such statements make the country’s foreign minister appear distanced from reality, especially to the international audience. If he had taken the trouble to study Pak-India relations, he’d have found that small initiatives like the NSA meeting the Indian high commissioner have often helped break the ice and resume deadlock. The best example is from the Musharraf era, when back door diplomacy turned a complete deadlock into a situation where to two countries almost settled Sir Creek. So far, though, he has not come across as a minister willing to learn from experience.
