New Delhi: In a move that could potentially mark the resumption of high-level contact between the foreign offices of India and Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided in principle to send External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Islamabad for a December 8 multilateral meeting on Afghanistan.
Pakistan extended a formal invitation to Swaraj three weeks ago for the ministerial meeting of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul process a 14-nation initiative dedicated to regional cooperation in Afghanistan but Modi was undecided on whether to send Swaraj to Islamabad or peg Indias participation at a junior level.
In the aftermath of the ill-fated National Security Advisers-level talks between India and Pakistan in August, the NDA government has adopted a policy of not encouraging bilateral meetings or contacts between the two sides on any subject other than terrorism. Since India was represented at the Heart of Asia ministerial meeting in Beijing in October 2014 by junior foreign minister V.K. Singh, the PMO feared deputing Swaraj to Islamabad might send a wrong signal to the Pakistani side that New Delhi was ready to engage again. In the absence of any concession from Islamabad, this was something Modi was reluctant to do.
Paris icebreaker
However, his brief but warm chat with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan on the opening day of the COP21 climate change event in Paris on November 30 appears to paved the way for a rethink.
For now, all that senior South Officials are prepared to say is that Swaraj will likely be attending the Islamabad meeting, joining ministers and envoys from the other 12 other countries which are part of the Heart of Asia process and the 17 which are supporting countries in discussing ways to help Afghanistan.
But once she is there, it is more than likely that she will meet with her counterpart, Sartaj Aziz. Aziz, who was recently divested of the charge of National Security Adviser, remains Foreign Policy Adviser to Sharif and is Pakistans de facto foreign minister. Pakistans NSA is Lt Gen (Retd) Nasir Khan Janjua.
Swarajs impending visit also assumes significance in the light of the upcoming Saarc summit, which Pakistan is scheduled to host in January 2016. The joint statement issued by India and Pakistan after the Ufa prime ministerial meeting in July 2015 noted that Modi had accepted Sharifs invitation to attend the summit.
Until today, prospects for the Saarc summit were seen in the region as receding in the face of Indias refusal to engage Pakistan except in the singular dimension of terrorism. The challenge for Modi, of course, was that he had said South Asia and Saarc would be a priority for his foreign policy and if the summit were postponed essentially because of the ongoing Indo-Pak standoff, this would compromise his own explicit regional agenda.
Indeed, rejuvenating Saarc was the alibi Modi chose to use when he sent Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar to Islamabad in March 2015 to steer the bilateral relationship out of the corner into which it had been backed following the cancellation of foreign secretary level talks in August 2014.
Today, it seems, it is the quest for stability in Afghanistan that has given India and Pakistan a new opening.
Regional process
Though India was not invited to a major international conference on Afghanistan organised by Turkey in January 2010 because Ankara chose to defer to Pakistani sensitivities at the time, pressure from the Afghans themselves ensured that the Istanbul process when it was launched in 2012 had all countries in Afghanistans immediate and extended neighbourhood as participants, including India.
The process envisages regional CBMs aimed at providing stability and prosperity in Afghanistan under distinct heads for which individual neighbours take the lead in organising sectoral meetings: disaster management (Pakistan and Kazakhstan); counter-terrorism (Turkey and UAE); counter-narcotics (Azerbaijan); trade, commerce and investment opportunities (India); regional infrastructure (Turkmenistan); and education (Iran).
Swaraj a hit in Islamabad
Swarajs last visit to Islamabad was in March 2002 also a time of bilateral tension when she was Information and Broadcasting minister in the NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and travelled to Pakistan to attend a meeting of Saarc information ministers.
At the time, the two sides had not had any high-level contact since the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on Indias parliament and their armies stood eyeball to eyeball.
Swaraj agreed to PTVs request for a televised interview but laid down two conditions that the interview be live and unedited and that it be conducted in Urdu. Pakistani analysts subsequently praised her performance.
However, the Vajpayee government did not use Swarajs visit as an ice-breaker and continued with Operation Parakram a strategy of coercive diplomacy in which the army was mobilised and deployed along the border in an offensive formation. Tensions ran high for most of 2002 and 2003 before back-channel diplomacy led to two key breakthroughs:the ceasefire agreement of November 25, 2003 and a joint declaration in Islamabad at the Saarc summit of January 6, 2004 in which General Pervez Musharraf agreed he will not permit any territory under Pakistans control to be used to support terrorism in any manner.
Pak, India Deny ‘Secret Meeting’ Reports
The Government of Pakistan on Thursday termed reports of a ‘secret meeting’ between Prime Minister Sharif and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi as baseless, Radio Pakistan reported.
No such meeting took place between the two leaders, the government’s spokesman said.
Indian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup also rubbished the reports, saying, “The report is completely baseless. No such meeting took place in Kathmandu during the Saarc summit.”
A book ‘This Unquiet Land Stories from Indias Fault Lines’, by veteran TV journalist Barkha Dutt, alleges Nawaz and Modi vanished for an hour to hold a quiet meeting ? which was so secret that it was deniable ? on the sidelines of a regional summit hosted by Nepal.
“A year ago all that the people saw was a quick handshake but away from TV cameras (they) held an hour-long secret meeting on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Kathmandu,” The Hindustan Times said, quoting the book.
The alleged meeting was facilitated by Indian steel magnate Sajjan Jindal, brother of former Congress MP Naveen Jindal.
Unknown to the media and certainly the public, both Nawaz and Modi had found someone to “keep them connected even when things got difficult”, Ms Dutt writes, describing Sajjan Jindal as an informal messenger serving as a “covert bridge” between the two leaders.
During their first meeting when Nawaz came to Delhi for Modis swearing-in the two PMs decided to keep the reins of the relationship in their hands, the Hindustan Times said quoting the journalist.
“However, they agreed that it could be useful to talk informally through a mutual acquaintance they both felt comfortable with.”
The acquaintance was Jindal, who hosted a tea party for Mr Sharif after his meeting with Mr Modi in Delhi. When Dutt went to meet the Pakistani leader at the Capitals Taj Mansingh hotel, she saw Jindal escort Nawaz’s son Hussain for lunch.
“It was no secret that Indian steelmakers, both state and private players, were looking to foster friendly relations with Pakistan; they needed this to happen so they could ferry iron ore from Afghanistan by road across Pakistan from where it could be shipped to ports in western and southern India,” Dutt writes.
Earlier this week, Nawaz and Modi had a ‘chance meeting’ on the sidelines of a climate summit in Paris.
The meeting took place when Modi went to the lounge for visiting leaders and found Nawaz sitting there, according to a diplomatic source who witnessed the interaction.
Noticing Nawazs presence, Modi walked up to him. The two leaders then warmly shook hands and sat next to each other and briefly chatted. No official delegates were present during the meeting.
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