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Focus on diplomacy

By Atul Aneja

NEW DELHI MAY 25. India today took the Pakistani missile test in its stride even as it prepared for the high-level diplomatic interaction next week that is intended to defuse the military tensions with Pakistan.

In an interview to CNN, the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, indicated that India was not particularly perturbed, as the Ghauri missile was not new and had been acquired by Pakistan from aboard. In fact, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Nirupama Rao, said that the missile launch need not be called a ``test'', but a ``firing'' of a pre-tested system that had been developed outside Pakistan. ``There is nothing indigenous about it.'' Highly-placed sources here said that India's reaction to the test had been deliberately restrained as there was an anticipation here that the missile firing was a ``ground-breaking'' exercise by Pakistan that could usher in a crackdown on Kashmir-bound terrorists in the coming days. By creating an atmosphere of ``defiance'' through the test of India-centric missiles, Pakistan may now find it easier to convey to a domestic audience that its strike on extremists, that might follow, was not under pressure from India.

Keen on keeping its pro-Kashmir image intact internally, the Pakistani side may also raise the rhetoric about providing ``moral, political and diplomatic support'' to the Kashmiris, in tandem with a crackdown, the sources said. India, on its part, may not find a new shrillness in Pakistani tone on Kashmir too difficult to absorb, provided there is genuine effort by Islamabad to address its prime concern of ending cross-border terrorism permanently.

According to sources, India was getting ready for a major round of diplomacy in the coming week, to ensure that Pakistan tackled cross-border terrorism, not with ``half-measures'', but in its entirety.

The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, is expected to arrive here on Monday. This will be followed by a visit of the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, on June 6.

Sources here anticipate that while the United Nations Security Council and most of the industrialised countries may succeed in ``persuading'' Pakistan to ``initiate'' steps to counter cross--border infiltrations, the international debate on the stand-off may soon shift on the possible ``concessions'' that India might give in return.

Anticipating this move, India's is likely to respond by citing the necessity of evolving verifiable mechanisms that will guarantee that Pakistan will dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism on its soil ``irreversibly''. Prior to the Agra summit, India had proposed sending its Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO) to Pakistan, so that joint mechanism to counter infiltrations could be established.

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