Pak. assessing Advani's statement

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, NOV. 29. Pakistan is carefully assessing the recent statement from the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, that the unilateral Indian ceasefire was not only directed at the Kashmiri militants but Islamabad also diplomatic sources here said.

Mr. Advani's declaration, reaffirmed over the last couple of days, may have some potential to reduce the profound misperceptions in Pakistan that the Indian ceasefire was purely tactical in nature and aimed at dividing the militancy in the Valley and cut Islamabad out of any peace process in the Valley.

The Minister had clearly stated the Indian readiness for a renewed peace process with Pakistan if Islamabad was prepared to endorse the ceasefire and stop cross-border terrorism. Until Mr. Advani's statement, there was no formal signal from the Government that it was ready to engage Pakistan under certain conditions.

Observers of Indo-Pak relations here say Mr. Advani was only making explicit what was always implied in the Indian position on engaging Pakistan. Since the Kargil confrontation last summer, India has insisted it will not talk to Pakistan unless there is an end to cross-border terrorism.

Mr. Advani has converted this negative formulation into a positive construction and located it in the context of the current unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir. Mr. Advani has asked Pakistan to ``take advantage'' of the ``second Indian peace initiative'' since the Lahore bus journey by the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, in February in 1999.

In suggesting that India is ready to engage Pakistan if there is an end to violence in the coming weeks, Mr. Advani may be offering the military rulers in Islamabad a way out of the current impasse in Indo-Pak relations.

That the statement has come from Mr. Advani, who is seen as a hardliner across the western border, and has been repeated with some consistency, is said to be making the Pakistani establishment sit up and take notice. But no one here is betting that the reassessment of Indian intentions in Pakistan will necessarily lead to positive decisions in Islamabad on ending cross-border violence.

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