Friday, Jun 07, 2002
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By C. Raja Mohan
The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, arrives here Friday morning from Islamabad with fresh assurances from Pakistan that it is doing its best to end infiltration across the LoC. The focus of Mr. Armitage's talks with the Indian leadership will be on developing a mechanism to verify the assurances of the Pakistan President, Gen. Musharraf to India's satisfaction and identify the reciprocal steps that New Delhi could take to defuse the tension with Islamabad. Mr. Armitage will hold substantive talks with the External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, in the morning, which will continue over lunch. He will have a round of consultations with the National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra. The envoy is slated to call on the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Home Minister, L.K.Advani, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sonia Gandhi. The Defence Minister, George Fernandes, is hosting a dinner for Mr. Armitage. In conveying the assurances on cross-border infiltration from Gen. Musharraf, Mr. Armitage carries extraordinary credibility. The tough-talking U.S. envoy, who is a former boxer, was the man who made the General discard two decades of Pakistan's political investment in Afghanistan and join the American war against the Taliban, after September 11. Mr. Armitage, who reportedly discussed with Gen. Musharraf "his concept of cessation of activities across the LoC'' will communicate the results of his talks in Islamabad to the Indian side. It would be reasonable to assume that the message Mr. Armitage brings tomorrow will be a positive one. Meanwhile, the indications here are that there has been a substantive reduction in infiltration across the LoC since the last week of May. Mr. Armitage is likely to spend considerable energies tomorrow in discussing the prospects for cooperation between New Delhi and Washington in continuously assessing the implementation of Pakistan's pledges on cross-border infiltration. The principal objective of his mission is to avert a war between India and Pakistan. The Bush Administration believes that verifiable cessation of cross-border infiltration is the necessary first step towards de-escalation of the current confrontation between the nuclear rivals in the subcontinent. Within that framework, diplomatic sources here say, Mr. Armitage will focus on getting some agreed definitions between New Delhi and Washington on different benchmarks in the incipient process of ending Pakistan support to terrorism and the consequent Indian measures on de-escalation. Once agreed definition of issues are in place, India and the United States could look at the sequence and linkage between different steps that Islamabad and New Delhi could take in the coming weeks to end their confrontation. The Armitage mission could succeed in defusing the current crisis, if the U.S. resists the temptation of limiting its focus to cross-border infiltration. It also needs to look at a comprehensive programme to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan. New Delhi would not want a situation where Pakistan stops cross-border infiltration but promotes terrorism in the Kashmir Valley. On its part, New Delhi will have to avoid overplaying its hand in the talks with Mr. Armitage tomorrow. By demanding far too many concessions from Pakistan before agreeing to de-escalate, appearing to deny the declining trends in infiltration, or seeming to shift the goal posts, India could find itself testing the patience of the international community.
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