ISLAMABAD – The recent agreement between Pakistan and India in Bhutan to resume dialogue for resolving various disputes was greatly facilitated by the backdoor diplomacy. Leading opinion makers and parliamentarians from India and Pakistan participated in two backdoor channel initiatives, held separately in Bangkok and Islamabad, prior to the talks between the foreign secretaries of the two countries in Bhutan.
These meetings were designed to improve the ambience of Pak-India dialogue. The initiatives, experts and parliamentarians believe, contributed significantly in pushing the two countries towards resuming the stalled discourse. “We do not claim that Bhutan agreement took place solely because of backdoor channels, but they certainly helped improve the ambience of dialogue,” Prof Riffat Hussain, who had participated in Chaopraya Dialogue in Bangkok, told Pakistan Today.
“The participants in Chaopraya Dialogue included former foreign secretaries, intelligence chiefs, top retired members of the armed forces, academicians and journalists. They all stressed that India and Pakistan should resume dialogue and discuss all issues, including Kashmir, as it was vital to peace and stability in the region,” Riffat said.
Ahmad Bilal Mehboob, the executive director of PILDAT which had organised a dialogue between Indian and Pakistani parliamentarians in Islamabad in January, said the backdoor programmes proved extremely helpful. “The Congress government in India wanted to have dialogue with Pakistan but it faced strong resistance from the Bhartia Janta Party (BJP) in the Indian parliament. The hard-line approach of the BJP and the Congress government’s fears provided us an opportunity to initiate backdoor channel diplomacy to reduce pressure on the Congress to facilitate the resumption of talks,” he said.
“So, we invited Indian parliamentarians from all major parties to have dialogue with Pakistani counterparts in order to brighten the chances for Indo-Pakistan talks,” Mehboob said. PML-N MNA Khurram Dastgir said the parliamentarians from both sides of the divide, despite differences, agreed that the trust deficit between the two countries should be removed, as it was vital to peace and prosperity in the region. “Pakistani lawmakers tried to convince India that terror acts of non-state actors should not be allowed to make talks between the two countries hostage,” Khurram said, adding Pakistan and India should keep on talking despite all odds.
When asked if the dialogue helped India and Pakistan to resume talks, he said the BJP did not oppose the Bhutan agreement as ferociously as it had done when the prime ministers of the two countries had agreed to restart talks at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
