ISLAMABAD – With Pakistan trying to devise a mutually agreed ‘roadmap’ with India for the revival of a stalled peace process, New Delhi is exerting pressure for alteration in the eight-point composite dialogue agenda and has asked Islamabad to insert “terrorism” as one of two major issues at the top along with Kashmir.
As mixed signals are coming from India ahead of the foreign secretaries’ meeting next month, Islamabad is not expecting a major breakthrough but looking forward to the foreign ministers’ encounter in a month or two with the hope that the secretaries will pave the way for the political leaders to break the ice.
The Indian foreign minister, who talked to his Pakistani counterpart last on Tuesday on telephone, expressed the hope to achieve “a positive outcome” at the forthcoming meeting between the foreign secretaries. Talking to reporters in New Delhi, he said he had reiterated his invitation to the foreign minister to visit India at a mutually convenient date to carry forward the dialogue process.
However, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told a group of Pakistani journalists visiting India last Tuesday that no “breakthrough” was expected during the foreign secretaries’ meeting to be held in Bhutan next month. “Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir is in close contact with the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad and other Indian authorities to chalk out an agreed ‘roadmap’ for the restoration of the peace process despite the fact that Pakistan’s believe the eight-point dialogue agenda is comprehensive and need not to be altered or changed,” a senior official said.
The official said Pakistan and India were deliberating upon “terrorism and security matters” as important issue under the composite dialogue agenda but the Indians were now insisting on inclusion of terrorism as one of two top issues along with Kashmir and that was the main stumbling block in the revival of peace process.
He said the two foreign secretaries, Bashir and Nirupama, who were meeting on the sidelines of a SAARC meeting in Thimphu (Bhutan) early next month would also try to remove that hindrance and prepare a roadmap for the revived talks to be announced by the two foreign ministers, SM Krishna and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, when the Pakistani foreign minister would visit New Delhi.
Another Pakistani diplomat said the talks were also on through “back channel diplomacy” to break the current stalemate between Islamabad and New Delhi and not only officials from both sides were engaged in talks but the top politicians, academics and former military officials from India and Pakistan also met in Bangkok for a round of Track-II parleys that would focus on resumption of stalled peace process.
He said, “The negotiations between Islamabad and India through formal and informal channels have entered a crucial stage with Pakistan trying its best for a breakthrough and pave the way for the resumption of peace process but all this depends on whether India shows flexibility and instead of focusing on only one issue of terrorism it agrees or not on discussing all issues.”
