The Hindu : Back channel: the promise and peril

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Back channel: the promise and peril

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI May 19. Two of the prized values in any envoy are accurate reporting and political discretion. These attributes acquire great importance when an envoy is asked to undertake sensitive negotiations. There is deep dismay here that the veteran Pakistani diplomat, Niaz Naik, who was involved in back channel talks with India a few years ago, is falling short on both counts.

In recent remarks over television that have been reported in the Pakistani press, Mr. Naik claimed that he had discussed the so-called ``Chenab solution'' to the Kashmir question with the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in 1999.

Those familiar here with Mr. Naik's parleys rubbish any suggestion that the Chenab solution, which will partition the State of Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan along religious lines, was ever discussed with him by the Indian side.

Informed sources here say that Mr. Naik was misreporting the nature of the dialogue as well as violating the first principle of back channel-secrecy. It is indeed widely known that Mr. Naik held talks with senior Indian journalist, R.K. Mishra, on the eve of the Lahore summit in February 1999 and during the Kargil war.

After the election of Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister of Pakistan in February 1997, there was a new hope for progress in Indo-Pak. relations. Mr. Vajpayee who took charge in March 1998 was seen as having the political clout in New Delhi to push Indo-Pak. relations forward.

Once the political excitement over the nuclear tests in May 1998 was over, Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Sharif first met in September 1998 on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly. With the talks going well, there was room for some loud thinking in private about future bilateral relations between the world's newest nuclear powers.

It was in this context that the Mishra-Naik talks took place. Ambassador Naik apparently was not the first choice of Mr. Sharif to conduct the political exploration with India. Mr. Naik's involvement began apparently after some initial ground had already been covered.

There is no official account so far from the Indian side on what transpired in these talks and what we have here is an account pieced together from a variety of sources.

It is believed that a whole range of issues, including Kashmir and commercial cooperation, came up in the talks between the two sides.

And once the Kargil war started, the focus of the back channel shifted to ending the Pak. occupation and terminating the war.

At no stage, sources say, was there any discussion of specific solutions to the Kashmir conflict. The broad understanding the two sides arrived at was to discard all proposals unacceptable to either side and take an intense look at potential solutions that might be acceptable to both.

The Indian side had apparently made it clear to Mr. Naik right at the outset that New Delhi would never even consider, let alone countenance, any final solution to the Kashmir issue that demanded a territorial adjustment along communal lines.

The Chenab solution would do precisely that by handing over Srinagar and large parts of the Kashmir valley to Pakistan.

As for the fanciful conditions set forth by Mr. Naik for vacating the aggression in Kargil, sources here say, they were dismissed out of hand by the Indian Government.

Why would Mr. Naik — a seasoned diplomat who served as Pakistan's Foreign Secretary, High Commissioner to India twice and is a leading light on Indo-Pak. Track II circuit — want to go against the basic rules of diplomacy?

The assessment here is that Mr. Naik might be under pressure from the Pakistan Army to lend some legitimacy to the ``Chenab solution'' in the likely negotiations with India on the Kashmir question if and when the current peace process moves forward.

Analysts here say Mr. Naik's indiscretions, whatever the motivation, undermine an important tool in Indo-Pak. diplomacy. Like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, the leaders of India and Pakistan have often found it convenient to engage each other outside the formal channels provided by the foreign offices.

The late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had the Chief of Research and Analysis Wing having talks with the boss of Inter-Services Intelligence in the late 1980s. When Benazir Bhutto took charge after the death of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq in 1988, the foreign policy aides of the two youthful prime ministers used to be in direct contact.

When trust is squandered by the back channel, there is little room for serious negotiations on sensitive territorial issues. As Richard Nixon, late President of the United States, said famously, ``unless covenants are arrived at secretly, there will be none to agree to openly''.

While the back channel remains an important diplomatic instrument, the lesson from the Niaz Naik episode is that talks through unconventional channels must be handled with great care and intensive preparation.

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