For a 'Framework' of Goodwill

THE POLITICAL WILL and even determination being exuded by both India and Pakistan to move beyond the controversies of the recent Agra summit suggests a shared sense of diplomatic urgency. The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, told the Rajya Sabha last week that at Agra, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's President and Chief Executive, and he had envisioned a broad ``framework'' for further bilateral parleys. Yet the entire political sweep of Mr. Vajpayee's reply to a debate on the summit was not exactly in harmony with his spirited if selective disclosure. What needs to be underlined, therefore, is the only realistic option before India and Pakistan. Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf should meet again as early as possible to accelerate the Agra process, however unfashionable such a notion might seem to some in the Prime Minister's own camp. Initially it appeared that official Islamabad was also not sure about Mr. Vajpayee's new version about an accord on some forward movement. But subsequently Pakistan's Foreign Secretary, Mr. Inamul Haq, was quoted by its state-sponsored news agency as having said during a visit to Washington that a ``framework for future talks'' had been agreed upon. Nonetheless, with the two sides yet to delineate the actual ``framework'' in the present circumstances, it appears possible that the earlier credible reports, which were traced mainly to Pakistan's team at Agra, might still be reflective of the transparent progress that was made behind the scenes at the summit (especially during the direct conversations between the two leaders).

A renewed Vajpayee-Musharraf summit now may still turn out to be a competitive exercise in some diplomatic scanning of the long calendar. Yet, a businesslike way forward can perhaps be crafted through some start-up discussions on Kashmir as also peace and stability, inclusive of nuclear and conventional confidence- building measures, at a designated political level below that of the summiteers. Other contentious subjects that could be grappled with by the officials of the two countries are aplenty, too. So, an immediate task before Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf is to generate goodwill among their peoples and a reasonable working relationship between themselves. It is within Pakistan's choices to take a benign view of the spirit behind a flurry of measures that Mr. Vajpayee had announced ahead of the Agra meeting to facilitate genuine people-to-people contacts including those that could only be dreamt of at this stage across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. Overall, though, both India and Pakistan should endeavour to create a civilised political culture as the setting for their dialogue process as a sequel to the Agra summit.

Viewed in this perspective, both sides have so far erred considerably. In the beginning, Islamabad seemed eager to pronounce the Agra event a success and to blame the anti-Pakistan hawks within Mr. Vajpayee's entourage for the absence of a formal accord there. Later, however, the Prime Minister showed himself to be reckless in revealing how he denounced his invited guest as a person with no democratic standing to talk about the ``wishes'' of the Kashmiris. Mr. Vajpayee's latest reported salvo was about his ``karma'' that forced him to sit with Gen. Musharraf. Now, highly complex are the real defining issues such as Kashmir's primacy to the India-Pakistan relationship and the arguments over Islamabad-sponsored cross-border terrorism within India. Given this challenge, Mr. Vajpayee will do well to invigorate the environment for post-Agra talks. Pakistan, too, must resist the temptation of hinting at linking its commitment to the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration, on the one hand, with India's attitude towards the non-enforceable U.N. resolutions of yore on Kashmir, on the other side. Yet, as Mr. Vajpayee seeks to address the domestic aspects of the Kashmir issue and score parliamentary points over his opponents, he should not merely put his articulative utterances to a laugh test.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Next     : Siege of summits