The CNN-IBN debate on the PM's Pakistan speech

I took part in a debate on Rajdeep Sardesai's show on CNN-IBN the night Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed Parliament on his Pakistan policy. The other participants were Arun Jaitley, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, and Nasim Zehra, the senior Pakistani journalist, on the phone from Islamabad...

8:30-9:00 PM - 30 July 2009
CNN-IBN

The video links are in seven parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

And the summary as put out by the channel is below...

Keep talking but force Pak to act against terror

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday defended his government's foreign policy in after a prolonged attack by the Opposition in Parliament. Manmohan said that India had to carry on dialogue with Pakistan and severing talks with Pakistan was not an option.

He also gave out details of the 34-page dossier where Pakistan has agreed to the involvement of terror groups based on its soil in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and has given details of its investigation including the arrest of those Lashkar-e-Toiba leaders Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah.

He also referred to Atal Bihari Vajpayee's efforts to make peace with Pakistan while defending the Indo-Pak joint statement and repeatedly stressed that zero tolerance policy on terror was still on.

He once again stressed no composite dialogue will take place unless Pakistan acted on terror but Pakistan's word must be trusted and the Opposition must allow the government to verify Islamabad's actions.

His answer to the contentious line on Balochistan was, however, far from convincing for the Opposition with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha MP Yashwant Sinha slamming the government and asking why was there such a difference in interpretation of the statement.

Sinha warned that Balochistan would return to haunt India in the future. Even Janata Dal (United) clamed that there was a divide between the government and the Congress party on the issue and said that India was under pressure from the US during talks with Pakistan at Sharm-el-Sheikh.

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, Associate Editor of The Hindu Siddharth Varadarajan, former diplomat KC Singh, Pakistani political analyst Naseem Zehra and Pakistan's Ambassador to the UN Abdullah Hussain Haroon joined CNN-IBN to discuss the Indo-Pak joint statement issued at Sharm-el-Sheikh.

Has Prime Minister successfully explained how terror is delinked from talks with Pakistan?

Prime Minister has said that meaningful talks with Pakistan can only take place when terror infrastructure is dismantled. It seems that the de-bracketing of terror talks from composite dialogue has been successfully answered.

Arun Jaitley claimed that there was no consistency in what the Prime Minister had said in Parliament and added that mere statements could not be the basis of foreign policy.

“I have no problem with what the Prime Minister said in Parliament but the problem is that what the Prime Minister said is completely inconsistent with the joint text which is the written word that the Government of India has signed. International relations are governed by joint text and not by unilateral statements made in your own country. The document says dialogue is the only way forward. It them goes on to say that action against terror cannot be linked to composite dialogue... the two have to be de-bracketed, which means that there is a change of policy. My problem is that you give emphasis to dialogue with terror contrary to the January 6, 2004 document that was dialogue without terror. The present document is dialogue irrespective of terror,” said Jaitley.

“According to me the Prime Minister has made a unilateral statement which is not connected to the document. The statement made today s runs counter to the written commitment of the Government of India. The joint text is loaded against us - be it Balochistan, be it terror,” he said.

Siddharth Varadarajan agreed with Jaitley’s assessment but pointed that that the joint statement served the interests of both India and Pakistan

“Jaitley is right in pointing to inelegant drafting of joint statement. But that inelegant drafting was deliberate because it allowed both India and Pakistan to walk away with interpretations which satisfies their domestic audiences. The Prime Minister has said that Pakistan does not have to wait for the composite dialogue to begin to act against terror. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousf Raza Gilani said last week that whatever Manmohan Singh has said on the floor of the House is what we agreed to at Sharm-el-Sheikh,” said Varadarajan.

So the problem seems to be in drafting and not with the interpretation.

Jaitley once again took potshots at the statement.

“I think a charitable explanation would be incompetence... a realistic interpretation would be that the policy has changed and that they are not bold enough to admit to the country that 'yes we did change the policy',” said Jaitley.

However, Varadarajan claimed that there would be no composite dialogue till Pakistan acted against terror.

“This is not about the language of the statement. The practical consequence is embodied in its very last paragraph where it says that the foreign secretaries will meet and the foreign ministers will meet. It is very clear that there is no resumption of composite dialogue and the Prime Minister has clarified this. Gilani when he was asked in Sharm-el-Sheikh that does this mean that composite dialogue will resume essentially said that he hopes that it does,” he said.

Pakistani political analyst, however, harped on the fact that India and Pakistan had not stopped talking even in the aftermath of the war in Kargil.

“There are two things. One, in the last decade Pakistan and India's experience has been that dialogue is really the tool that helps us deal with most of the problems. Even terrorism is being dealt with this tool called dialogue. Your Prime Minister has made it clear that we are not going to abandon dialogue. On the other hand Pakistan-India relations cannot basically move towards any fruitful cooperation unless and until unless security related issue which is of terrorism is addressed whether we are talking about Kashmir, Mumbai or Balochistan. Within weeks of Kargil, Brajesh Mishra and Pakistan's senior Foreign Ministry official Tariq Fatmi met in Geneva, which means BJP too recognises that dialogue is crucial when there is a problem,” said Naseem.

Manmohan Singh said that when Vajpayee took peace initiatives the Congress then in Opposition supported the government. But now the foreign policy consensus seems to be breaking down.

“In principle dialogue is really the way forward. Engagement with Pakistan would be necessary but you have to decide at what level the engagement would go on. But the question is will this dialogue go on with the condition that Pakistan will bring down terror and not allow its territory to be used or irrespective of the Pakistani attitude the dialogue will go on. We want a dialogue without terror. The document that Manmohan Singh and Gilani have signed does not reflect the foreign policy consensus in India,” claimed Jaitley.

Will Balochistan haunt Manmohan Singh in dealing with Pakistan?

Varadarajan pooh-poohed the idea saying nothing of that sort will happen.

“It is much ado about nothing. The absence of Blaochistan before the joint statement did not prevent Gilani in raising it vociferously in Sharm-el-Sheikh. Tomorrow if Pakistan has evidence they will raise it and we will discuss it. If you are involved and foolish enough to leave evidence then it will be raised. If you are not involved and there is no evidence why worry about any discussion,” said the veteran journalist.

Jaitley was sceptical and said that Balochistan would be a sore point for India.

“That is too simplistic an explanation. The reference to Balochistan is not for nothing. Words are not put into joint text, which do not carry any meaning or purpose. When Prime Minister said Pakistan is also a victim of terror he brought Pakistan at parity with India. At Sharm-el-Shiekh the Prime Minister went as a victim of terror and came back virtually saying that India is the perpetrator of terror as far as Balochistan is concerned,” said Jaitley.

Has Manmohan Singh carried forward Vajpayee's legacy?

Singh said during the debate in Parliament that if "sworn enemies like Iran and US can think of starting to talk why not Pakistan and India". He also said that "it is time to trust Pakistan and that's what Vajpayee did and I am following that legacy".

Jaitley was once again quick to punch holes in the argument.

“There is not much of difference except one point. It is good to follow Vajpayee legacy and to work towards dialogue with Pakistan. But must you delink dialogue with terror? Must we have dialogue with terror or must we have dialogue without terror? To accept in writing that we can have dialogue with terror is not Vajpayee legacy,” said the erudite lawyer.

Varadarajan pointed out that Vajpayee has agreed to resume talks on mere verbal assurances by Pakistani leadership that its territory won’t be used for launching attacks against India.

”Let us set aside Sharm-el-Shekih and take the bull by the horn. At Islamabad on January 6, 2004 prime minister Vajpayee agreed to resumption of dialogue on nothing other that promise from president Prevez Musharraf that his territory would not be used for terrorist attacks against India. Musharraf said that his action against dialogue would be based on a sustained and productive dialogue. He was linking the two. This statement is an improvement on that. Secondly why do we forget that Pakistan has gone the farthest than it has ever gone in acknowledging that its territory has been used by terrorists. This is a major concession. Whether they follow through and successfully prosecute the big fish remains to be seen. But it would be churlish on our part not to recognise that and not to build a policy based on that reality,” he said.

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A confident Manmohan creates space for flexible response

The Prime Minister's speech in Parliament on Wednesday on Pakistan and terrorism was one of the finest I've seen him make... I can't say he has brought complete clarity to a policy that is still contradictory and confused but he has opened up room for the government to be more flexible and innovative in the months ahead. And given the hysterical response which greeted Sharm el-Sheikh, that is no mean achievement...

30 July 2009
The Hindu

NEWS ANALYSIS

A confident Manmohan opens space for flexible response

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: The Prime Minister’s authoritative statement in Parliament on relations with Pakistan accomplished the impossible: answering hardline critics in India fearful of the resumption of dialogue while not compromising the domestic credibility of his potential interlocutors across the border or hurting the prospects for peace between the two countries.

In being equally mindful of his Pakistani audience, Manmohan Singh was returning a favour to Yusuf Raza Gilani. Soon after his Sharm el-Sheikh meeting, the Indian Prime Minister had told Parliament the joint statement’s reference to delinking action on terror from the composite dialogue process did not mean talks would automatically be resumed. Rather than publicly join issue, the Pakistani Prime Minister had graciously told reporters — much to the consternation of hardliners there — that “whatever [Dr. Singh] said on the floor of the House ... is what we agreed.”

That is why Dr. Singh was careful to emphasise on Wednesday the need for India to make sincere efforts to live in peace with Pakistan, to reach “an honourable settlement of the problems between us,” to keep channels open. “Unless we want to go to war with Pakistan, dialogue is the only way out,” he asserted at the end of his speech, “but we should do so on the basis of ‘trust but verify’.”

Despite feverish media speculation about the Congress having washed its hands of his latest initiative, Dr. Singh spoke with the full backing of the Treasury benches as he rebutted the Opposition’s charges and defended the joint statement of July 17. If proof was needed of how effective his intervention on Pakistan was, BJP MP Sushma Swaraj, who rose to question him as soon as he had finished speaking, provided it. Ms. Swaraj, who only last week had referred to the joint statement as “shameful”, kept quiet on the subject this time around, asking only for clarifications on the government’s stand on climate change and reprocessing.

In the fullness of time, Dr. Singh’s response to the debate will be seen as a potential game changer in India’s official discourse on Pakistan, especially his emphasis on the inevitability of engagement, his clarity on the fact that the alternative to dialogue was war, his fear that the absence of direct talks with Pakistan would allow foreign powers to get involved in the region to India’s detriment, and his recognition of the need to strengthen Pakistan’s civilian leaders.

On all these points, the Prime Minister is far ahead of the “national mood” that retired diplomats and generals still fighting the battles of the past have created on our TV channels. Of course, as far as the here and now is concerned, Dr. Singh stressed that the only practical agreement in Sharm el-Sheikh had been for the two foreign secretaries and foreign ministers to meet. The composite dialogue, he said, would have to wait.

But if there is going to be no immediate change of policy, the Prime Minister was also keen to emphasise the significance of Pakistan admitting for the first time that its territory had been used for terrorist acts against India. This, he reminded the Opposition, was more than the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government had managed to achieve. Recounting the setbacks like Kargil, the Kandahar hijacking and the terrorist attack on Parliament which followed the NDA’s peace initiatives in Lahore and Agra, Dr. Singh nevertheless praised Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the courage he had shown as Prime Minister in not giving up the quest for “permanent peace.”

He was also generous enough to acknowledge that the Pakistani dossier on Mumbai, handed over before Sharm el- Sheikh, had allowed India to move forward because it showed Islamabad had begun to act against some of the terrorists involved. Of course, the dossier “showed progress, though not adequate progress” in addressing India’s concerns and he hoped Islamabad would do more.

It is clear that resumption of dialogue is very much on the horizon but India will calibrate the pace of engagement to the degree to which Islamabad moves ahead on its commitments to act against terror.

Through his intervention, however, the Prime Minister has steered the bilateral relationship away from the dead-end to which the Opposition’s arguments would have sent it and created room for the government to be more flexible in its approach.

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Missing the wood for the trees on Pakistan

Pakistan’s response to Mumbai may not be good enough, but delaying dialogue will not produce a better outcome for India ...

29 July 2009
The Hindu

Missing the wood for the trees on Pakistan

Siddharth Varadarajan

When Manmohan Singh explains his government’s policy towards Pakistan to Parliament on Wednesday, the worst thing he can do is to disown, downplay, retract or resile from the joint statement he issued with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in Sharm el-Sheikh on July 17.

So irrational and poisonous has the Indian debate on the joint statement become that the Government is today under enormous psychological pressure to declare Sharm el-Sheikh a mistake. The Congress party is tongue-tied and a junior minister for external affairs unwisely sought refuge in the irrelevant plea that the text the Prime Minister had agreed to is not a legal document. The implication is clear: Sharm el-Sheikh may be a sell-out, but the sale deed is not legally binding so don’t worry.

What the opposition’s noise and government’s poor salesmanship have done is reinforce the idea that the current Indian policy of not talking to Pakistan --- in place since the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008 --- is working fine and that there is no need for any change or adjustment. This is unfortunate. For, in the run up to Sharm el-Sheikh, Dr. Singh was bold enough to recognise the policy had already yielded the most it could. And that it was time to prepare the ground for change.

The idea that not talking is a good strategy is based on four myths, all of which are deeply flawed.

Myth #1: The Composite Dialogue benefits Pakistan and is bad for India.

Four rounds of composite dialogue have been completed and the fifth was under way when the Mumbai attacks happened. Progress has been modest in some areas like trade and CBMs, negligible in others like the Kashmir dispute and terrorism. But the achievements are not insignificant: An MoU to increase the frequencies, designated airlines and points of call in either country of air services; an agreement for trucks from one side to cross the border up to designated points on the other side at the Wagah-Attari border; an increase in frequency of the Delhi-Lahore bus service; an MoU between the Securities and Exchange Board of India and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan; completion of the Joint Survey of Sir Creek and adjoining areas; agreement on consular access; implementation of CBMs with a view to enhancing interaction and cooperation across the LoC such as increased frequency of Muzaffarabad -Srinagar and Rawalkot-Poonch bus service, intra-Kashmir trade and truck service.

Of these, Sir Creek and cross-LoC CBMs are especially significant. Resumption of Composite Dialogue would lead to the Sir Creek issue being settled quickly, allowing both India and Pakistan to finalise their exclusive economic zone claims under the Law of the Seas convention. And measures could be taken to increase bilateral and cross-LoC trade. The Jammu Traders Association, for example, would like the current weight restriction on trucks to be increased from 1.5 tonnes to 10 tonnes. Traders on both sides also want the two governments to improve communications and banking facilities, which are virtually non-existent. It is hard to imagine why India would want to delay agreement on these kinds of issues.

Myth #2: Stopping the composite dialogue will protect India from further terrorist attacks.

The biggest fear the Congress party and Prime Minister Singh have as they move towards the resumption of dialogue with Pakistan is the political consequences of another major terrorist strike. The fear is justified. But not talking will hardly reduce the capability or intention of Pakistan-based terrorists. And to the extent to which talking may make Islamabad’s cooperation in fighting terror more likely, dialogue may even reduce the chances of a major terrorist strike. Of course, the truth is that the Pakistani government and military are unable to prevent terrorist attacks on their own soil. Even if India had full confidence in Islamabad, it would be foolish for any Indian government to rely on anything other than homeland security to protect itself. Too often in the past, a hardline stance vis-à-vis Pakistan was seen as a substitute for toning up and professionalising the Indian police, intelligence and security apparatus. And the country paid a heavy price.

Myth #3: Stopping the Composite Dialogue helps India put pressure on Pakistan to take action against terrorism.

Within the Pakistani establishment, the military and the ISI are least enthusiastic about the resumption of composite dialogue. As are the various terrorist groups and their sympathisers. Indeed, hardliners in Pakistan are critical of the civilian government for appearing as if it is desperate for talks with India. It is this military-intelligence-jihadi nexus which has been the most vocal about India’s alleged involvement in Balochistan. That is why Mr. Gilani was anxious to take back from Sharm el-Sheikh some proof of the fact that he had raised the Balochistan issue with Dr. Singh.

Myth #4: Pakistan has “not done anything” to bring the perpetrators of Mumbai to book

Time will tell how serious Islamabad is about prosecuting the Lashkar-e-Taiba men it has charged for their role in the Mumbai case, and whether the ‘big fish’ like Zaki-ur-Lakhvi or Zarrar Shah are convicted or just LeT footsoldiers. But more than the fate of the individuals involved, India has reason to feel satisfied Pakistan has accepted in writing that the crime was hatched and executed from Pakistani soil. This is more than any Pakistani government has ever done in the past and it would be churlish to deny this reality. That said, given the manner in which power in Pakistan is fragmented, it is unlikely that the system there will go any further than it already has in meeting India’s post-Mumbai concerns, at least for now. If the consensus in India is that Pakistan has “not done enough”, then the country should be prepared for a long period during which there will be no dialogue, and bilateral relations will slowly deteriorate.

The joint statement

As far as the Sharm el-Sheikh statement is concerned, there is no doubt that better, more careful drafting was needed. A crucial sentence therein --- “Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed” --- can be read two ways.

But even if India now says this does not mean the dialogue process should be delinked from Pakistani anti-terror actions, the sentence’s second, more direct meaning --- that those actions should not depend on the dialogue process --- is a definite improvement over the Islamabad joint statement of January 6, 2004. There, the operational paragraphs were: (i) India saying the prevention of terrorism would take forward the dialogue process, (ii) Pakistan assuring India it would not permit its territory to be used for terrorism, and (iii) Pakistan emphasising that “a sustained and productive dialogue addressing all issues would lead to positive results”.

It is clear that this reference to “positive results” was in relation to Pakistan’s commitments on terrorism. In other words, the Islamabad statement implicitly linked Pakistan’s actions on terror to “a sustained and productive dialogue addressing all issues”. To that extent, Sharm el-Sheikh is an improvement, though what matters at the end of the day are actions and not words

On Balochistan, Sharm el-Sheikh was not the first time the situation in the Pakistani province became an issue in the bilateral relationship. On December 27, 2005, the Ministry of External Affairs made the internal situation there a foreign policy concern: “The Government of India has been watching with concern the spiralling violence in Balochistan and the heavy military action, including the use of helicopter gunships and jet fighters by the Government of Pakistan to quell it. We hope that the Government of Pakistan will exercise restraint and take recourse to peaceful discussions to address the grievances of the people of Balochistan”, it said.

Islamabad hit back the same day, with its foreign ministry spokesperson rejecting the Indian statement as “unwarranted and baseless”. The statement was “tantamount to meddling in internal affairs”, the spokesperson said, adding, “India often shows an unacceptable proclivity to interfere in internal affairs of its neighbours”. Next, the Pakistani spokesperson made a comparison with Kashmir: “The statement is all the more surprising from the spokesman of India, a country that has long tried to suppress the freedom struggle of the Kashmiri people…”

Having made Balochistan a bilateral issue in such a public manner, India can hardly object to a Pakistani prime minister raising it in a summit meeting or linking it to Kashmir.

History will pass judgment on the wisdom of allowing a reference to the rebellious province in the joint statement. But what matters most is not the reference but the reality. If Indian agencies are not involved, no ‘Kasabs’ will ever be found and Pakistan will get little traction from raising the B word in bilateral or international forums. But if an Indian Kasab is ever found there, the absence of a reference to Balochistan in a joint statement will provide New Delhi no protection from the charge of involvement. The Prime Minister said India has nothing to hide. There is no reason to imagine he was whistling in the dark.

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The bottom line behind India-U.S. 3.0

In between lobbying for American arms sales and nuclear reactor parks, Hillary Clinton spent barely two hours out of five days in official discussion with her Indian hosts...



24 July 2009
The Hindu

The bottom line behind India-U.S. 3.0

On July 8, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described India as an “emerging” global power. Ten days later she dropped the adjective, India’s entry on the world stage coinciding with her own moment of arrival on Indian shores. Ms Clinton was well advised. There is nothing the Indian elite likes more than having its great power ambitions stoked in this manner. But along with great flattery comes greater responsibility. And having declared India wort hy of global power status, American commentators have been breathlessly asking whether the country is “ready” to step up to the plate and play ball. “India wants to be seen as a major world power,” a New York Times editorial noted condescendingly. “For that to happen, it will have to drop its pretensions to nonalignment and stake out strong and constructive positions.”

The purpose behind Ms Clinton’s visit was twofold. First, to build new structures of engagement that might bring Indian thinking on major global issues like climate change, trade and disarmament in line with the “strong and constructive positions” the U.S. takes and away from the alternative consensus India is trying to build at different forums like BRIC, IBSA, G-20, G-77 and NAM. This she did by proposing a strategic dialogue consisting of “five pillars,” ranging from non-proliferation and climate change to trade, investment and agriculture. The second purpose was transactional: how to translate the strategic partnership with India into commercial gains for American businesses.

On both counts, Ms Clinton’s five-day visit was an unqualified triumph. The new strategic dialogue architecture was unveiled, and a strong foundation laid for nuclear and military sales. Both sides pretended to exchange views on burning international issues. But with barely an hour set aside for her official meeting with External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, it is obvious that Ms Clinton was not particularly interested in hearing what her Indian hosts had to say on Iran and other subjects. Especially since she had already heard the one thing most important to her — end use.

Setting aside the publicly and privately expressed reservations of its armed forces, the United Progressive Alliance government agreed to an end use monitoring (EUM) agreement providing for the physical verification of defence items purchased from the U.S. None of India’s major defence suppliers imposes such a condition, though of course it may welcome the opportunity to do so in the future now that the country has shown a willingness to open its doors. India also gave in to the U.S. request to identify the two nuclear parks where American-supplied reactors will be installed. This at a time when Washington is attempting to renege on its commitment to facilitate full civil nuclear cooperation with India by getting the Nuclear Suppliers Group to introduce an NPT-only rule for the sale of enrichment and reprocessing items.

Much has been said about how the U.S. insists on EUM arrangements with all its defence customers and that India cannot expect to be given a waiver from a requirement that is embedded in American law. Chapter 4.5.7 of the Pentagon’s Security Assistance Management Manual (SAMM) spells out the EUM condition for foreign military sales: “Sales and assistance may be made to countries only for purposes of internal security, legitimate self-defense, for preventing or hindering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and of the means of delivering such weapons, civic action, or regional or collective arrangements consistent with the United Nations (UN) Charter, or requested by the UN… Proper use of U.S.-origin items is a joint responsibility of the recipient and U.S. personnel. U.S. representatives have primary responsibility until items are physically transferred to the recipient. The recipient then assumes this responsibility, based on agreements under which transfers are made, including transfer to a third party or other disposal or change in end-use.”

As the CAG discovered during his scrutiny of the Jalashva (formerly USS Trenton) landing dock ship India bought from the U.S. a few years ago, American weapons contracts come not just with potentially intrusive inspections but also with a “legitimate self-defence” end use requirement whose interpretation is bound to be contingent on wider political equations. For example, Israel has used U.S.-supplied aircraft and munitions in nakedly aggressive acts against its neighbours countless times but Washington has never held these to be a violation of the self-defence condition. But tomorrow, if India uses an American-supplied jet for an anti-terrorist operation outside its borders that the U.S. does not approve of, the end-use language of SAMM 4.5.7 may well be invoked against New Delhi. The Trenton was sold to enable India to deploy troops for humanitarian missions in the region that the U.S. may be unable or unwilling to undertake. If India tries to use it for “offensive” purposes, however, it may well have to contend with U.S. protests.

Every country that sells arms abroad does so for commercial gain. Many countries also use arms sales as a tool of foreign policy. But only the U.S. uses these sales as a tool of military policy as well. Arms transfers help build interoperability. And they also help shape the way the receiving military operates. What is on offer, therefore, is not an off-the-shelf sale but a comprehensive package whose components are not available for cherry picking. After the EUM agreement will come the Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and a Logistics Supply Agreement (LSA). It is not a coincidence that almost all of America’s customers for advanced military hardware are either formal alliance partners, major non-Nato allies or client states, none of whom has a problem with providing U.S. inspectors access. Before it plunges headlong into a closer military relationship, India needs to carefully consider what this entails.

Part of the problem has to do with mistaken assumptions and flawed understandings in India of what its strategic partnership with the U.S. involves. India assumes that American interests and strategies in the region are congruent with its own. India also believes a strategic partnership means the Americans will understand and share its concerns and priorities on most big issues and, at a minimum, not act against Indian interests wherever there are divergent views. For the U.S., on the other hand, the partnership is all about shaping India’s choices and priorities. It is about ensuring that India does not bandwagon with other rising powers. And acting against Indian interests (as it is now doing at the G8 and NSG) is not seen as a contradiction. That is why Indian apprehensions about President Barack Obama’s commitment to the strategic ties established by George W. Bush were so misplaced. This partnership helped open the doors of nuclear commerce for India but also led to a number of Indian doors being opened for the American side. Surely it would be most un-American for the new administration to not seek entry.

If India-U.S. 2.0 was all about laying the groundwork for cooperation in a variety of fields, India-U.S. 3.0 is where Washington gets to cash in. The U.S. intends to ensure that India honours the Letter of Intent it gave last September promising to place orders for nuclear reactors capable of generating at least 10,000 MW of electricity. The American arms industry — which lobbied hard for the passage of the nuclear deal through Congress — also intends to collect. And the Pentagon, which, in many ways, spearheaded Washington’s outreach to India in the 1990s and again after 9/11, would like to ramp up military-to-military cooperation using common equipment as a springboard.

In the weeks before the Hillary visit, U.S. officials not only worked out the agenda that was to be covered but also announced their intentions loud and clear. It is not a coincidence that the “five pillars” were identified not in the joint Indo-U.S. statement but in a separate “fact-sheet” issued by the U.S. embassy. Sadly, very little of this ideation and articulation took place on the Indian side. If India had a positive, proactive agenda of what it hoped to get out of the visit, this was kept a tightly guarded secret. Certainly, there was no public expression of it. When difficult issues arose in the public domain — like the attempt by the Obama administration to get the G8 to ban ENR sales to India — these were ducked and a senior Minister fielded to tell Parliament that the government was not unduly concerned.

India’s engagement with the U.S. is one of the most exciting and challenging aspects of the country’s foreign policy today. But unless this high-stakes game is handled properly, with planning, foresight and determination, it could well turn out to be dangerous.

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ISI chief to India: talk to us, we make policy too

New Delhi will only respond to request made by Pakistani government...

23 July 2009
The Hindu

ISI chief to India: talk to us, we make policy too

Nirupama Subramanian and Siddharth Varadarajan

ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI: Days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani met in Egypt, the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence floated a suggestion that India deal not just with Pakistan’s civilian government but also directly with its Army and intelligence agency.

Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha made the out-of-the-box overture during a meeting earlier this month with the three Indian defence advisers representing the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force attached to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, The Hindu has learnt.

The sit-in at Lt. Gen. Pasha’s office in Rawalpindi on July 3 took place entirely at his initiative, though it was ostensibly convened in response to a request made by the Indian High Commission “years before.” It is normal for defence advisors attached to various diplomatic missions in Islamabad to seek and be granted calls on the ISI director-general — a wing of the ISI is the co-ordinating agency for them — but Indians have rarely had an audience.

During their discussion, Lt. Gen. Pasha and the defence advisors did not refer to the Mumbai attacks or the investigations into it, either on the Indian or Pakistani side. Nevertheless, senior officials in Delhi saw the interaction as an attempt by the ISI to “reach out” to India in the run-up to the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting of the two Prime Ministers.

The Hindu has learnt that during the course of the extremely cordial meeting, Lt. Gen. Pasha came clean in stating that the ISI and the Pakistan Army were involved in framing Pakistan’s India policy, along with the Foreign Office. He made the oblique suggestion that India deal directly with these three institutions if it had a similar three-way mechanism.

In their effort to understand the genesis of this idea, Indian officials sought to establish whether the ISI chief — who has a reputation for speaking his mind freely — had merely made an off-the-cuff remark or was floating a trial balloon after consultations with all other “stakeholders” in the Pakistani establishment.

Ministry of External Affairs officials asked Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik about the ISI chief’s suggestion, but the envoy was unaware that the meeting had even taken place. This led the MEA to conclude that the Pakistani foreign office may not be in the loop.

Asked about the July 3 meeting last week, Mr. Malik confirmed to The Hindu that it took place but said he was unaware of what was discussed. Major-General Athar Abbas, the Pakistani military spokesman, said he had no knowledge of the meeting. Officials at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad also refused comment.

Highly placed South Block officials told The Hindu that India is not averse to talking to the Pakistani military or the ISI even as it engages with the civilian government but there were two problems with the suggestion. First, any proposal to open new lines of communication must come from the Pakistani government. And second, the power structures in India and Pakistan cannot really compare with each other.

Although Prime Minister Singh and Prime Minister Gilani agreed the ISI chief could come to India in the immediate aftermath of last November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Islamabad quickly backtracked. Since then, no formal proposal for interaction between the ISI and an Indian intelligence agency has been made. Indeed, Mr. Gilani told reporters at Sharm el-Sheikh that the question of an intelligence chiefs’ dialogue did not come up in his meeting with Dr. Singh, a fact confirmed by Indian officials.

But apart from form, it is the question of structure that poses an obstacle. “The Research & Analysis Wing operates within the law and is subordinate to the government,” a senior intelligence official told The Hindu. “There, the government is subordinate to the ISI, which is a law unto itself.”

South Block officials said the Indian High Commissioner and his officers could and should be in touch with the Pakistani army and intelligence chiefs. “But I wonder what would be the point of the Indian Army Chief talking to his Pakistani counterpart … their job definitions are so different.”

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Has Hillary really disowned U.S. policy on ENR sales to India?

One stand in Delhi, another at NSG...

22 July 2009
The Hindu

Has Clinton really disowned U.S. policy on ENR sales to India?
One stand in Delhi, another at NSG

Siddharth Varadarajan

NEW DELHI: On November 20, 2008, the U.S. threw its full weight behind new draft rules at the Nuclear Suppliers Group that ban the sale of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to India. The NSG draft, ‘Revised Paragraph 6 and 7 of INFCIRC 254/Part I,’ lists seven criteria that must be fulfilled before an NSG member authorises the supply of ENR facilities, equipment and technology.

According to a copy of the text obtained by the Arms Control Association (ACA) and accessed by The Hindu, the very first of these criteria, numbered 6(a)(i), is that the recipient must be “a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and is in full compliance with its obligations under the Treaty.” The second is that it has “signed, ratified and is implementing a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA,” something India cannot do because it has nuclear weapons.

Only four countries are not party to the NPT: India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. But since the existing NSG guidelines prohibiting nuclear transfers to non-NPT members have been waived only for India, the proposed restriction directly targets New Delhi.

Though the draft was introduced by the Bush administration, the Obama administration got the G-8 to begin implementing it on a national basis this month. If approved by the 45-nation cartel, the clean waiver India got last September would apply only to nuclear reactors, components and fuel and no longer to ENR items. It would be, in the words of Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar, a “breach of trust” and “contrary to the spirit” of the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked on Monday whether the U.S.-sponsored NSG move undermined the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, her answer took everyone by surprise. “As I understand [the] question, it was whether we oppose the transfer of processing and enrichment technology, well, clearly we do not,” she said. “We have just completed a civil nuclear deal with India. So if it is done within the appropriate channels and carefully safeguarded, as it is in the case of India, then that is appropriate.”

“Ms. Clinton either misspoke or was badly advised about U.S. policy on the transfer of sensitive ENR technology,” ACA director Daryl Kimball told The Hindu. “The purpose and intent of the G-8 policy — and the pending November 2008 NSG proposal — is indeed to bar ENR technologies to states [like India] that have not signed the NPT …”

At an off-the-record interaction with Indian analysts here on Tuesday, a senior U.S. official initially said “India won’t be affected” by the draft NSG rules. But he added he was on “thin ground” and that Bob Einhorn, Ms. Clinton’s special adviser on non-proliferation, was better placed to clarify U.S. policy.

While Indian officials, who say they still have not seen the NSG draft, suspect Ms. Clinton misspoke, they believe India should hold her to the position. Indian analysts, however, see her remarks as aimed at buying time. “It would have been very inopportune for Clinton to rule out ENR transfers while in Delhi. That would have injected a note of controversy just as the PM was earmarking two sites for U.S.-supplied nuclear reactors to India,” said the former Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal. “The U.S. will continue to obfuscate the issue so that the prospects of the U.S. nuclear industry in India are not hurt. The line would be that we are not ruling out anything and that after the reprocessing negotiations are completed, other issues will be taken up.”

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Kakodkar sounded warning on NPT link to ENR

U.S. effort at NSG would be “breach of trust”, the Atomic Energy Commission chairman said in January. And that India must take ’concerted action’ to avert new rule. But the Government did not listen...

20 July 2009
The Hindu

Kakodkar sounded warning on NPT link to ENR

Siddharth Varadarajan

NEW DELHI: The United Progressive Alliance government may insist it is “not concerned” by the recent American move to get the G8 to prohibit the sale of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to India pending a similar ban by the Nuclear Suppliers Group. But six months ago, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar publicly drew attention to the restrictive moves afoot and warned that what Washington was pushing was “contrary to the spirit” of India’s bilateral agreement with the United States.

In his inaugural address to a seminar on Global Nuclear Challenges, organised by the Centre for Air Power Studies on January 10, Dr. Kakodkar spoke of “credible but unofficial information” that the Consultative Group of the NSG was “moving very close to the decision that ENR technologies would be available on the condition that one must have signed the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].”

He was referring to the NSG draft on ENR transfer rules which emerged from the November 2008 meeting of the nuclear cartel. Barring a few “bracketed” sentences, that draft has the informal approval of the NSG’s 45 members. And it is the unbracketed bulk of the text that the G8 has decided to implement from now on. That text is not public but diplomatic sources told The Hindu the proposed conditions for ENR transfers include NPT adherence. The U.S. also went on record last October to say getting NPT conditionality at the NSG was its top priority.

“Targeted at India”

Contrary to official spin that the new G8 ban (and the NSG ‘clean text’ it implements) is aimed at “rogue states” such as North Korea and Iran or “non-state actors”, Dr. Kakodkar was clear about the aim of the NPT rule: “Obviously, such a condition is directly targeted at India.”

He said this because the current NSG guidelines prohibit nuclear transfers of any kind, including ENR items, to countries outside the NPT. India secured a clean waiver from this guideline in September 2008. If the NSG now adopts a new guideline on ENR transfers specifying NPT membership, India would be the only country affected because Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — the other three outside the treaty — were already banned from receiving any nuclear transfers by the existing catch-all guideline.

India, the AEC chairman had warned, “needs to take concerted action to make sure the NSG does not take that decision. And if the NSG does take that decision, it would be a breach of trust and it would be contrary to the spirit which has been spelt out in the Bilateral Agreement with the U.S.”

The ENR issue was important, Dr. Kakodkar said, not because India was desperate about getting any technology in these areas. “The issue is how the world looks at us.” In particular, India does not want to be singled out as a target for an ENR technology ban, least of all because it has not signed the NPT.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who spoke on the issue in Parliament last week when the ENR controversy erupted, said the G8’s decision could not be equated with the NSG. “We have received a clean waiver from 45 NSG countries… therefore we are not concerned with what resolution or position G8 takes in respect of a particular issue.” He added that individual countries had the right to decide whether to trade or not. For India, however, what matters is the NSG waiver.

The NSG has not yet taken a final decision. But this still raises the question of why Washington is pushing rules at the NSG which amount to a “breach of trust” and which are “contrary to the spirit” of the Indo-U.S. agreement. And, of course, what “concerted action” New Delhi is planning to prevent its clean waiver from being formally diluted.

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Space agreement to help launch ‘India-U.S. 3.0’

S.M. Krishna, Hillary Clinton to unveil new strategic dialogue architecture in which non-proliferation, security, education, etc. to be covered ...

20 July 2009
The Hindu

Space agreement to help launch ‘India-U.S. 3.0’
End-use pact on defence sales still uncertain

Special Correspondent

New Delhi: Despite last-minute wrinkles, India is still looking to sign an end-use monitoring agreement to ease the sale of U.S. military hardware during the visit here of Hillary Clinton, but the highlight of Monday’s discussions between External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and the U.S. Secretary of State will be the unveiling of a new strategic dialogue architecture and the signing of an agreement to facilitate the launch of U.S. satellites and satellites with U.S. components on Indian launch vehicles.

South Block officials say the new dialogue architecture is intended to take Indo-U.S. relations to a higher level, 3.0 — to use Ms. Clinton’s phrase — and will cover areas like nonproliferation, security, education, health and development. Although the U.S. side is keen on India making public the sites where U.S.-supplied nuclear reactors will be located, a final decision has yet to be taken on this in South Block.

The new Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA) to be signed on Monday will cover launches involving satellites owned by U.S. government or academic institutions or by third country space agencies and universities which have U.S. equipment on board. Since the components and satellites will have to be integrated with ISRO’s launch vehicles, the TSA will provide for monitoring by the U.S. side to ensure against diversion or misuse of equipment.

In March 2006, Frontline reported that the U.S. was insisting on “a full-fledged TSA, which included restrictive movement of the payload, constant overseeing presence of U.S. escorts, and impermeable firewalls between civil and military payloads.”

According to ISRO officials, the final text of the agreement to be signed follows the standard template the U.S. negotiates with all countries. “Its provisions are essentially driven by U.S. law and India did not have much flexibility during its negotiations,” an official told The Hindu.

The agreement to be signed is apparently an umbrella one — similar to the TSA that China and the U.S. signed — with individual licensing by the State Department likely dispensed with, but India will not yet be able to enter the lucrative market for the launch of U.S. commercial satellites or third country commercial satellites with U.S. components till a separate Commercial Space Launch Agreement (CSLA) is signed. “The TSA is a necessary but not sufficient condition for commercial launches,” said an ISRO official. India and the U.S. have been working on the draft of a CSLA for some time now but there are still major differences between the two sides.

Even after a CSLA, however, ISRO will not be able to launch U.S. communications satellites since these figure in the U.S. Munitions List and require separate certification from the State Department.

A second agreement will also be signed by Mr. Krishna and Ms. Clinton on a framework for “robust result-oriented cooperation” in science and technology for “collaborative research and its commercialisation.”

Ministry of External Affairs officials say this agreement will build on the October 2005 Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement.

The Next Steps in Strategic Partnership of January 2004 envisaged an agreement to allow for the Indian launch of all U.S.-licensed satellites and third country satellites with controlled U.S. items on board but despite the absence of this, the NSSP was declared “concluded” in July 2005.

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From Pakistan's dossier on the Mumbai terror attack

Three pages from the annexe of the dossier Pakistan handed over to India have been posted on the website of The Hindu in PDF format. They provide details of the five men chargesheeted and the 13 declared proclaimed offenders. I have posted these pages here in jpg format ...

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Reprocessing talks with U.S. to begin next week

U.S.-prepared draft handed over earlier this month will be basis for talks... July 2010 is the deadline by which an agreement must be concluded...






19 July 2009
The Hindu

Reprocessing talks with U.S. to begin next week

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: With the fate of billions of dollars of reactor sales riding on the outcome, India and the United States will begin formal negotiations next week on the conditions under which American-origin spent nuclear fuel will be reprocessed within the country.

The talks, which get rolling in Vienna on July 21, are aimed at finalising the “arrangements and procedures” under which the spent fuel generated by U.S.-supplied reactors will be reprocessed. The reprocessing is to be done in the new safeguarded facility India agreed to build in its nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S, also known as the 123 agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Washington will have until July 21, 2010, to reach an understanding with Delhi once the negotiations commence. The one-year deadline was insisted upon by India with the negative experience of Tarapur in mind. Decades after the U.S.-supplied reactor there became operational, India is still waiting for America to make the “joint determination” necessary for the reprocessing of accumulated spent fuel to begin.

According to a senior official from the Ministry of External Affairs, India will be represented in the talks by a five-member technical delegation headed by R.B. Grover, while Richard Stratford, the State Department’s top negotiator on nuclear energy matters, will lead the U.S. side. Like Dr. Grover, Dr. Stratford is a veteran of the complex and difficult negotiations that followed the signing of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal in July 2005, especially the 123 agreement.

Indian officials said a U.S.-prepared draft handed over earlier this month will be the basis for the talks. The brief for the Indian delegation is also clear: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured Parliament in 2006 that the country would only accept standard IAEA safeguards on its civilian facilities. The problem is that IAEA procedures are themselves changing as the technology for measurement precision evolves. Safeguards on the Rokkasho-Mura plant in Japan, for example, involve the use of expensive monitoring equipment, all of which the U.S. got the Japanese to pay for. All told, the negotiations are expected to be “tough but doable.” One major Indian concern is irreversibility: what the country does not want is a situation where Washington terminates consent on some ground.

IAEA Declaration

Although a senior U.S. official, Robert Blake, was quoted on Thursday as saying the reprocessing talks would begin only after India files a declaration with the IAEA on its facilities to be safeguarded, South Block officials said the declaration as envisaged by paragraph 13 of the safeguards agreement would likely be made some time later. They also said there was nothing in any Indo-U.S. agreement to imply linkage.

The declaration will consist of the list of civilian nuclear facilities India will place under safeguards. Officials confirmed that a draft declaration has been prepared and is undergoing internal vetting. When filed, however, the individual facilities listed will only come under IAEA inspection after separate notifications are filed and the concerned facilities added to the safeguards annexe one by one.

Indian officials say the notifications process is still some distance away, since facilities will be placed under safeguards only when lifetime fuel supply arrangements have been tied up for them.

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No ‘sell-out’ at Sharm-el-Sheikh

Better drafting may have spared us some of the confusion we've seen since the July 16 meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousaf Raza Gilani. but that is the price India and Pakistan must pay for traveling half-way around the world for hurried conversations that ought to be conducted in a more leisurely manner back home...

18 July 2009
The Hindu

No ‘sell-out’ at Sharm-el-Sheikh

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: Going by the hyper-reaction the Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Geelani has generated in India as well as Pakistan, it is evident that the joint statement they issued could not have gone much further than it did in addressing either country’s core concerns.

The Pakistani delegation came to the meeting with its tails up, still smarting from the inadvertent slight Dr. Singh delivered to President Asaf Ali Zardari at their encounter in Yekaterinburg. What Mr. Gilani and his entourage wanted more than anything else was the resumption of the composite dialogue process, suspended by India in the wake of last November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

In the run-up to the meeting, New Delhi had asked for and received a written communication from the Pakistani government detailing the results of the investigation it had conducted. One week later, this dossier is still apparently being “evaluated” but Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told reporters it confirms the involvement of about a dozen Pakistani nationals and also names “one or two organisations.”

Whether a credible prosecution is now mounted or not, it is clear the present government in Islamabad has gone further than any of its predecessors in acknowledging the fact that Pakistani nationals and organisations had used Pakistani territory to plan and launch a terrorist strike in India.

These admissions came as a result of sustained pressure from India and the international community after Mumbai and were made in the teeth of opposition from hardline elements within the Pakistani establishment that have still not made up their mind about the need to end the policy of using jihadi terror as a force multiplier against India.

In January 2004, on the basis of nothing more than an assurance from General Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan’s territory would not be used to launch terrorist strikes on India, the erstwhile BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government took the major step of restarting the composite dialogue.

That joint statement may not have said so explicitly but it was predicated on the kind of “delinking” of terror and talks that the BJP now describes as a “capitulation.” The reality is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, despite his personal commitment to the need to engage with Pakistan, has actually been far more cautious in Sharm-el-Sheikh than Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in Islamabad.

After all, the Zardari-Gilani duo has delivered more than the empty assurances Mr. Vajpayee brought back with him to Delhi. And in exchange, much to the chagrin of his Pakistani interlocutors, what Dr. Singh is willing to offer is not immediate resumption of the composite dialogue but only the possibility of this at a later date.

Given the hostility with which the joint statement has been received in India, the Pakistani side would now have a slightly better understanding of the political constraints Prime Minister Manmohan Singh faces as he tries to move the peace process forward. Similarly, some of the phrasing in the July 16 joint statement is a reflection of Dr. Singh’s understanding of the constraints which the civilian leadership in Pakistan faces as it battles with a military-intelligence establishment that fears the loss of its domestic influence and power if the jihadi networks are rooted out.

Mr. Gilani, for example, brought some of the arguments of his hawks to the meeting, such as their allegation of Indian involvement in the secessionist movement in Balochistan. The joint statement records the fact that he raised the issue and this, presumably, will give ballast to the civilian leadership. It does not say India concurred, let alone admitted to any involvement. The statement does not even say India was willing to discuss the matter bilaterally. That offer was actually made by Dr. Singh in his press conference later in the day because, he said, New Delhi had nothing to hide. Yet, some in India are interpreting this innocuous reference as an admission of guilt. The only thing more fanciful is the opinion of some Pakistani hawks that by mentioning Balochistan in the statement, Prime Minister Gilani has “internationalised” an internal issue.

Apart from misplaced ire on the ‘B-word,’ the joint statement formulation that has excited the greatest amount of nervous excitement in India is this: “Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed.” What this means is that action on terrorism must follow its own logic: No civilised society can allow its soil to be used for the planning and perpetration of terrorist acts on a neighbour. And that the composite dialogue process must also proceed on the basis of both sides engaging with each other for mutual benefit. Tomorrow, if a resumed dialogue process deadlocks on Siachen or some other topic, Pakistan should not use that as an excuse to resile from its obligation to fight terror. But implicit in this delinking is the controversial notion that India must not suspend the composite dialogue because it feels Pakistan has not taken enough action against terrorism. India has always made this link in the past. And Dr. Singh’s statement that meaningful dialogue is possible only if the Mumbai perpetrators are brought to book makes it clear India does not intend to delink the two in the future either.

The weakness of this formulation is not that there should be no linkage but that unidirectional linkage is not possible. The political reality is that there can be no meaningful dialogue between India and Pakistan if the latter does not act firmly and credibly against terrorism. Islamabad cannot expect Delhi to begin the composite dialogue when the latter does not believe it has delivered on its commitments. Equally, the Indian side must realise that sustained Pakistani action against terrorism cannot occur in a diplomatic vacuum. Constructive engagement allows rational elements within the Pakistani system to demonstrate that dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism can produce tangible gains and not just pain.

Better drafting might have allayed some of the misplaced anxieties we have seen on both sides of the border but this is the price India and Pakistan must pay for running halfway around the world for brief meetings on the sidelines of other events. At Sharm-el-Sheikh, the two Foreign Secretaries laboured under both the barrel of television cameras with their insatiable appetite and rolling deadlines and the clock of multiple appointments the two Prime Ministers had with other world leaders. One lesson to be learned from this experience is that the forthcoming meetings between the two sides should be conducted in a calmer manner, preferably in each other’s capitals, so that the concerned officials have ample time to discuss and work out their apprehensions. Following a “normal” routine of meeting rather than tailing the multilateral events calendar might also have allowed India to properly study Pakistan’s Mumbai dossier before the two Prime Ministers met. And that might well have produced greater clarity, if not a bigger breakthrough.

For despite the cries of “sell-out,” it is the status quo ante of a suspended composite dialogue that still prevails after Sharm-el-Shaikh, with the prospect of resumption kicked down the road. “Whether, when and in what form we broaden the dialogue with Pakistan will depend on future developments,” Dr. Singh told Parliament on Friday. It is now up to both sides to make those future developments happen.

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Joint statement flowed from meeting of Prime Ministers

Foreign Secretaries asked to discuss ties and report back to Foreign Ministers...


17 July 2009
The Hindu

Joint statement flowed from meeting of Prime Ministers

Siddharth Varadarajan

Sharm-el-Sheikh: Till the one-on-one meeting between the two Prime Ministers began here on Thursday morning, there was uncertainty about whether a joint India-Pakistan statement might be issued at all. A senior South Block official told The Hindu there was no statement on the cards when the meeting began and even a sense of deadlock. But the hour-long meeting between the two leaders changed everything.

“I had a very good discussion with Prime Minister Gilani for more than an hour,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told reporters later. “At the end, we called in the two Foreign Secretaries. I asked the [Pakistani] Prime Minister to sum up what we had agreed. I then added some things and we asked them to draft a statement.”

Indian and Pakistani officials said the Manmohan-Gilani meeting went very well with the two principals striking a rapport with each other. Both recited Urdu couplets, said a Pakistani source. And broadened their discussion in the presence of their delegations during the hour or so that it took Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and his Pakistani colleague Salman Bashir, to hammer out an acceptable draft of the joint statement. At one point, said an Indian official, a Pakistani legislator from Nawaz Sharif’s PML who was also part of Mr. Gilani’s official entourage asked Dr. Singh about India’s Panchayati Raj system. The Prime Minister promptly held forth on the topic.

But at the end of the day it was terrorism which dominated the encounter.

On the Mumbai attacks, the joint statement said Dr. Singh reiterated the need to bring the perpetrators to justice while Mr. Gilani assured him that “Pakistan will do everything in this regard.” He mentioned the updated status dossier on their investigations into Mumbai which Dr. Singh said was being “reviewed.”

However, in the first-ever reflection in a joint statement of Pakistani apprehensions about alleged Indian interference in its internal affairs, the text blandly notes that “Pakistan has some information of threats in Balochistan and other areas.” This is a reference to allegations the Pakistani intelligence establishment has made of covert Indian assistance to secessionist forces in that rebellious province, a charge the Indian side denies.

The Prime Minister denied this represented a climb down by India or a concession to Pakistan. “Mr. Gilani raised the issue of Balochistan and said people say India is active [there]. I said our conduct is an open book and that we are willing to discuss anything… If you have any evidence, we are willing to look at it. We are an open society.”

Stressing that there was no change in India’s stand on keeping the composite dialogue suspended, Dr. Singh said the statement asks the Foreign Secretaries to discuss the relationship and report back to their Foreign Ministers. “Apart from this, we have not made any commitment.” He said he told Mr. Gilani the composite dialogue could not begin until there had been an accounting of what had happened in Mumbai and the perpetrators were in the dock. “We felt the two issues should not be and cannot be linked and this has been accepted by Pakistan,” he added. “We were clear that if acts of terrorism continue [from Pakistani soil], then dialogue cannot continue, let alone the composite dialogue… And even if it starts, it cannot move forward.”

The fact that Dr. Singh proceeded to link the composite dialogue process with action on terrorism even as he spoke about the significance of Pakistan agreeing to delink the two underscored the highly ambiguous nature of the phrase. And perhaps the contradictory impulses driving the Prime Minister and his officials in the run-up to Thursday’s meeting.

With Pakistan resisting any reference to the “infrastructure of terrorism” on its territory, the joint statement noted that terrorism was the main threat the two countries was facing and that India and Pakistan would cooperate with each other in the fight against this menace. Specifically, it said they would “share real time, credible and actionable information on any future terrorist threats.”

The reference to real-time information sharing, Dr. Singh said, resulted from India’s apprehension that there might be more Mumbai-type attacks. Prime Minister Gilani told him his government was committed to acting against terrorism and that there was a political consensus in Pakistan in support of firm action. “So we agreed to share information with each other on these threats.”

Dr. Singh said he raised the issue of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed’s recent release from house arrest and received an assurance from his Pakistani colleague that action would be taken against him.

Asked whether he believed the terrorists in Pakistan were “non-state actors” or had connections with the establishment, Prime Minister Singh said, “I am not accusing the present Pakistani government of involvement but as far as past history is concerned, I did say there were elements [from the establishment] that were involved. But I did not accuse the present, democratic government of Pakistan of this,” he stressed.

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India and Pakistan to ‘delink’ action on terror from dialogue

But no resumption of composite dialogue yet; Foreign Secretaries to meet again...

17 July 2009
The Hindu

India and Pakistan to ‘delink’ action on terror from dialogue

Siddharth Varadarajan

Sharm-el-Sheikh: The leaders of India and Pakistan took a modest step towards thawing the bilateral relationship, frozen since the Mumbai terrorist attacks, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani, agreeing that dialogue between their two countries “is the only way forward.” And though the joint statement issued after their meeting here on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned summit said nothing about when and how the Composite Dialogue process would resume, the two Foreign Secretaries have been tasked with meeting “as often as necessary” in the run-up to a review by the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Ministers in New York this September.

Speaking to reporters later, Dr. Singh said Mr. Gilani had been keen to resume the composite dialogue “here and now.” “But I said that the dialogue cannot begin unless and until the terrorist acts of Mumbai are fully accounted for and the perpetrators are brought to book.” Unless this happened, he stressed, “I cannot agree and our public opinion will not agree.” There was no road map for resumption yet, he said, but added: “We have an obligation to engage Pakistan.”

Ambiguity

In their interaction with the media, both sides exploited the ambiguity in the statement’s most dramatic new formulation —“Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these [sic] should not be bracketed.” Indian officials said this meant Pakistan should not wait for the resumption of the composite dialogue to take action against terrorism. And Pakistani diplomats said this meant the future of the dialogue process should not be held hostage to the perception in New Delhi that Pakistan had not done enough to stop the activities of terrorists operating from its territory. Which is why they felt the joint statement represented a breakthrough of sorts.

Whichever way one interprets the phrase, however, it is clear that India had been the one to link the composite dialogue with action on terrorism by suspending talks after the terrorist incidents in Mumbai last December and earlier in 2006. And notwithstanding the joint statement, it is evident the link remains a factor in India’s eventual willingness to resume the dialogue as and when this occurs.

Asked by reporters if the joint statement meant India was ready to resume the composite dialogue, Mr. Gilani said, “It is my understanding that they are convinced it is the way forward.” He also drew attention to India’s readiness “to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues” and that “this will not be bracketed with the Mumbai incident.” Did this include Kashmir? “All core issues, everything is to be debated, whatever is pending in the composite dialogue,” he said, adding that Dr. Singh had said in a “very positive manner that ‘I am not scared to discuss all outstanding issues’.”

Speaking on background, Pakistani diplomats acknowledged the resumption of the composite dialogue was some way away. “But we have moved forward. And ultimately, that is where we will surely end up.”

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India, Pakistan positive on talks

But looking only for modest gains ...

16 July 2009
The Hindu

India, Pakistan positive on talks
But looking only for modest gains

Siddharth Varadarajan

Sharm-el-Sheikh: Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir met here late on Tuesday night and again briefly on Wednesday as part of renewed efforts by the two countries to restart the dialogue process and address the recurring problem of terrorists using Pakistani territory to launch attacks in India.

Mr. Menon said Tuesday’s talks, which lasted 90 minutes, involved “good,” “detailed and lengthy” discussion on the issues he and Mr. Bashir had been tasked to take up. Apart from the dossier Pakistan had prepared on its investigations into the Mumbai terrorist attack, the Foreign Secretary said he was briefed by his counterpart on the steps Islamabad had taken. “I told him of our concerns and he told us what they had done and of their determination to fight terrorism,” Mr. Menon said. “But our job was to report back to our leaders, not draw conclusions.”

Although the Indian side had earlier suggested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani could “meet” the press together after their scheduled meeting on July 16, Mr. Menon was unwilling to predict the outcome of the principals’ meeting, including whether or not there would be a joint statement of some kind. He said the question of “form” was less important than dealing with the conditions generating stress in the relationship and urged the media not to speculate about what was still a work in progress. “The less you speculate, the less likely you are to go wrong,” he said.

Speaking to The Hindu, Pakistani Foreign Ministry officials also described the Foreign Secretaries’ meeting as positive. “Quite a lot has been done on our side [to address India’s concerns],” a Pakistani official said. “Now let us see if the two Prime Ministers can agree to a resumption of the dialogue process.”

As of now, it appears the Indian side is looking only for modest gains from Sharm-el-Sheikh and that there is considerable internal resistance to the resumption of the composite dialogue. “I don’t think there will be any dramatic announcement here,” a key South Block official said. But he added that this did not mean there had not been very definite forward movement. “Things are moving slowly, but they are moving.”

In private, Indian and Pakistani officials said a further round of “talks about talks” could be held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September, though perhaps only at the Foreign Minister or Foreign Secretaries level.

Mr. Menon said the Pakistani dossier on Mumbai — which is still being evaluated by India — named five individuals who were under arrest there, nine who were proclaimed offenders but absconding and some others who might also be involved in the conspiracy. “The names of terrorist organisations also figure,” he said declining to provide any details since Pakistan had not made the report public.

On June 17, 2009, Dr. Singh and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Yekaterinburg and agreed to ask their Foreign Secretaries to discuss what Pakistan had done and could do to address India’s concerns relating to terrorism.

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India says financial crisis gives NAM new relevance

“A moral force for equitable transformation of today’s world” ...

16 July 2009
The Hindu

India says financial crisis gives NAM new relevance

Siddharth Varadarajan

Sharm-el-Sheikh: Calling the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) a “moral force” for the equitable transformation of a world going through the worst economic crisis “in living memory,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the 118-nation grouping must ensure the steps planned to revive the global economy take into account the developing world’s concerns.

He was speaking at the NAM summit which got under way here on Wednesday.

Dr. Singh said the developing countries had been the hardest hit by the crisis which “emanated from the advanced industrial economies” and had strengthened protectionism and choked credit and capital flows to the third world. “If the aftermath of the crisis is not carefully managed, and if the abundance of liquidity leads to a revival of speculative activities, we may well see a period of prolonged stagflation,” the Prime Minister warned.

On climate change too, he blamed the “over two centuries of industrial activity and unsustainable lifestyles in the developed world” for the threat posed to the planet by the accumulation of greenhouse gases.

The weight of NAM should be used to achieve “a comprehensive, balanced and above all, equitable outcome” in the ongoing multilateral negotiations leading up to the Copenhagen conference in December this year.

The Prime Minister criticised the fact that “decision-making processes” at the United Nations and in international financial institutions “continue to be based on charters written more than 60 years ago, though the world has changed greatly since then.”

He said NAM should work to prioritise Africa’s problems in the global development agenda. On its part, India was committed to developing a comprehensive partnership with the continent.

Palestinian issue

Echoing the strong sentiment within NAM in support of Palestinian aspirations, the Prime Minister began his remarks by saying his “thoughts turn to the people of Palestine, who have endured great suffering and hardship.” “The movement,” he said, “must do more to facilitate a comprehensive, just, lasting and peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue.”

On terrorism, he stressed the long-standing Indian demand for speedy agreement on a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. “Terrorists and those who aid and abet them must be brought to justice,” he said. “The infrastructure of terrorism must be dismantled and there should be no safe havens for terrorists because they do not represent any cause, group of religion.”

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Dateline Sharm-el-Sheikh: NAM energised by new discipline, purpose

Less bombast, more focus...

17 July 2009
The Hindu

NAM energised by new discipline, purpose

Siddharth Varadarajan

Sharm-el-Sheikh: For a grouping known by the expansiveness of its rhetoric and the prolixity of its participants, the Non-Aligned Movement seems to have turned a new leaf. Short speeches, more or less tightly woven around the theme of international solidarity for peace and development, were the order of the day and even the opening plenary — normally the stage for lengthy, declaratory pronouncements on weighty matters — ended half-an-hour before the time allotted for it.

Officials from India, Cuba and other NAM countries said it was evident the grouping had undergone a quiet transformation, in part because of the gravity of the financial crisis. “There is a new purposiveness,” a senior Indian official involved in the process of drafting the NAM summit declaration, said to The Hindu on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. “The acrimony quotient is almost absent and most bilateral issues have been kept out.”

The only glimpse of the old NAM was provided by the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who spoke on behalf of the Africa group and occupied the rostrum for much longer than the world leaders who spoke on behalf of Asia, Latin America and Europe.

Speaking with passion, Mr. Gaddafi blamed the West for the problems of global warming, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Capitalist firms had destroyed the ozone layer and now developing countries were being targeted in the name of fighting terrorism. Defending Sudan and its leadership against the indictment handed down by the International Criminal Court over Darfur, the Libyan leader said the NAM should set up its own terrorism court to protect itself from the “terrorism of the ICC.” Is it right that the President of Sudan has been charged? “Will the ICC charge those who killed more than a million Iraqis?”

Waving a copy of the apology which the Italian government recently tendered to Libya for its colonial occupation of the country, he said the half-a-billion dollars Rome had agreed to pay annually was a good example of what was needed in the world. “We should not ask for aid, we should ask for compensation.”

Speaking earlier, Cuban President Raul Castro, in his capacity as chair of the last NAM summit, called for a new monetary and economic world order to take into consideration the needs of developing countries. He also said the NAM should be more active in the field of human rights and non-proliferation. Health also should be a priority, with the need for special focus on decreasing child mortality due to preventable diseases.

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India, Pakistan facing ‘last chance’ for dialogue

If there is no progress now, relations may slowly deteriorate ...

15 July 2009
The Hindu

India, Pakistan facing ‘last chance’ for dialogue

Siddharth Varadarajan

Sharm-el-Sheikh,(Egypt): The legal status of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed is casting a malevolent shadow over crucial talks India and Pakistan will have here this week on the sidelines of the Nonaligned summit. And though a decision by the Supreme Court in Islamabad to reject the appeal against his release from preventive detention is unlikely to derail the possibility of the two countries breaking new ground, South Block sources say any Pakistani permissiveness towards individuals and organisations involved in inciting terrorism will place the bilateral relationship under strain in the long run.

Asked for their view of the Pakistan and Punjab government’s appeal now underway in Islamabad before Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhary, the South Block sources told The Hindu they had no issue with the requirement that criminal action against the LeT chief be fully in accordance with the law of the land. But if a weak case is filed or presented, Islamabad cannot then hide behind the fig leaf of procedure, the sources felt.

Though unstated, there is another concern involved here. In a situation where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is taking the lead in seeking a path towards renewed engagement with Pakistan, dismissal of the Saeed case is likely to be seized upon by those within the Indian establishment who still harbour doubts about the need for dialogue.

Indeed, what makes Sharm-el-Sheikh crucial for both sides of the debate is that it represents a ‘last chance’ at the resumption of normality. With Dr. Singh not attending the U.N. General Assembly session this year, the chance of another meeting with either President Asif Ali Zardari or Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani any time soon is low. And in the absence of any top-down forward movement — which is the only way India and Pakistan have overcome major problems in their relationship in the past few decades — bilateral ties will inevitably stagnate and even deteriorate.

If the Prime Minister is painfully aware of this pattern, he can also see the potential for change that Pakistan’s own internal troubles have generated.

In the wake of the terrorist attack on Parliament, Islamabad took only small steps like banning some terrorist organisations and declaring it would not allow cross-border attacks in response to India’s full-scale military mobilisation. And yet, the erstwhile Vajpayee government was prepared to take a big step like resumption of the composite dialogue.

Today, the Manmohan Singh government has the right to feel satisfied by how its strategy of flexible containment has paid richer dividends than Operation Parakram ever did. Islamabad has acknowledged for the first time that its soil was used to attack India. It has arrested key operatives of the LeT and announced it will try them. Separately, President Zardari has acknowledged that promoting terrorism was a part of state policy until recently. And the Pakistani armed forces are involved in a war against the Taliban near the Afghan border, even as the latter’s allies have responded by acts of terrorism in Punjab.

In their Yekaterinburg meeting last month, Mr. Zardari agreed to Dr. Singh’s proposal that the two foreign secretaries review the extent to which Pakistan has addressed Indian concerns on terrorism. That will happen now. But unless Sharm-el-Sheikh produces a broader agenda for the future, India is likely to experience diminishing returns.

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India hopes for forward movement

Forget France and even NAM, Indian officials are getting ready for the big Pakistan meeting in Sharm-el-Sheikh...

14 July 2009
The Hindu

India hopes for forward movement

Siddharth Varadarajan

PARIS: On the eve of India and Pakistan’s first substantial official interaction since last November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the Indian side accepts that Islamabad has taken “some steps” to address its concerns even as doubts persist about how deep the Pakistani establishment is prepared to go in putting the various terrorist groups operating on its territory permanently out of business. At the same time, India is hopeful the coming week will generate some forward movement in the bilateral relationship.

Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon will meet his Pakistani counterpart, Salman Bashir, in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt late on Tuesday night, shortly after he arrives there with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend the 15th summit of the Nonaligned Movement. The Foreign Secretaries’ interaction will, in turn, set the stage for a one-on-one meeting between Dr. Singh and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan on Thursday morning. The Prime Minister’s official programme has set aside a block time of 90 minutes for that encounter.

Speaking on background, official sources told The Hindu that India hoped to hear what steps Pakistan had taken against those groups responsible for Mumbai and other terrorist acts and what it planned to do in the future. Describing the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief, Hafiz Saeed, as “a big part of the infrastructure of terrorism,” the sources said that action should be taken against him even if UN resolutions do not mandate his arrest because “Pakistan is obliged under its own laws and customary international law to arrest anyone who incites terrorism. Any normal, civilised society should do that.” That said, the sources stopped short of specifying the precise metric by which Pakistan’s willingness to act against terrorism would be judged other than to reiterate that the conspirators of Mumbai must be prosecuted to begin with.

Too early

The sources appreciated the recent public statements made by Pakistan’s Interior Minister but said it was too early to pronounce judgment on the dossier Islamabad had prepared.

“The dossier was handed over to us at 10:30 pm on Saturday and we are still looking at it.” On the “larger question,” the sources said, “they have taken some steps but what it amounts to is not clear.”

“There is no point in repeating history. You have to take into account what has happened since. I don’t think it is possible or reasonable to simply go back to the composite dialogue,” an official said, adding that this was his personal view.

“But then I don’t think the Pakistanis who want the resumption of dialogue are saying that is the only framework.”

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Stage set for fresh engagement with Pakistan

From Mumbai to Yekaterinburg to Sharm-el-Shaikh, a new basis for India and Pakistan to pursue the peace process might finally be emerging...
13 July 2009
The Hindu

Stage set for fresh engagement with Pakistan

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: As the principal strategist behind recent moves India and Pakistan have made to restore some normality in their bilateral relationship, it is with a sense of satisfaction that Manmohan Singh begins a four-day visit to Paris and Sharm-el-Shaikh whose highlight will be a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, on the sidelines of the Nonaligned summit on July 16.

The Prime Minister’s search for a new Islamabad strategy began immediately after the elections. Senior officials familiar with his thinking said Dr. Singh sought an approach that would generate both increased incentives for Pakistan to deliver on its commitment to fight anti-India terror as well as greater opportunities for India to press ahead with those areas of the bilateral process which generate mutual equity.

Along the way, the Prime Minister had to join battle with sceptics within, many of whom warned against the ‘premature’ engagement of Islamabad, as well as hardliners in Pakistan who are still not reconciled to the fact that radical extremism and terrorism pose a greater existential threat to the future of the country than India.

And then there was a third obstacle: the accident-prone nature of the relationship.

By happenstance or design, the Lahore High Court freed Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed just when the Prime Minister had begun the internal process of making a case for reviving the peace process. And in Yekaterinburg, where Dr. Singh met with President Asif Ali Zardari, the Prime Minister’s inadvertent remarks before the media robbed that encounter of its potential benefits even before it started. The now famous statement about his mandate being limited to discussing terrorism was drafted by National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and was meant to be delivered in the presence of the two full delegations before the two leaders began their one-on-one. As soon as everyone was seated, the Prime Minister began speaking. But he didn’t notice the media was still in the room.

Fortunately, six decades of hostility has taught both sides to take such incidents in their stride. And they began a series of quiet official discussions to see if the minimum groundwork for a successful meeting in Sharm-el-Shaikh could be laid.

The Indian military attaches in Islamabad met with the ISI’s powerful chief, Lt. General Shujaa Pasha. Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Delhi Shahid Malik worked hard to convey India’s expectation of tangible, written evidence of progress in the Mumbai incident. Having spelt out their bottom line, Indian officials sat back and waited. First came the filing of an appeal against Saeed’s release. And on Saturday, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik went public with the perfectly timed decision of his government to press ahead with the trial of several LeT men for their role in the Mumbai case. On the same day, Prime Minister Singh, who had privately told journalists his Yekaterinburg remarks had been mistimed, publicly stated that he had not intended to snub Mr. Zardari.

When the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Secretaries meet on July 14, they will review these matters and report back to their principals. But where Dr. Singh has demonstrated a willingness to overrule sections of the intelligence and foreign policy establishment in pursuit of a fresh approach, the Pakistani political leadership does not enjoy the same freedom.

For that reason, the immediate resumption of the composite dialogue is not on the cards. The most likely outcome of Sharm-el-Shaikh is the two Foreign Secretaries being tasked with reviewing the overall structure of bilateral engagement.

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