The Hindu : Talks today on composite dialogue

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 16, 2004

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Talks today on composite dialogue

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, FEB. 15. The three-day official-level talks between India and Pakistan, which begin in Islamabad on Monday, are likely to set the modalities, time-frame and detailed agenda for the composite dialogue in line with the eight subjects previously agreed upon for discussion between the two countries.

As the "talks about talks" get under way, India will be closely watching what Pakistan is doing on the anti-terrorism front. According to an official assessment, infiltration levels are down, but there has been little action as far as the infrastructure of terrorism is concerned. Communication among terrorist organisations was still on and their training camps had not yet been dismantled, it said. At the same time, there was an awareness that the November 2003 ceasefire held.

The January 6 joint press statement drew a clear linkage between anti-terrorist actions taken by Islamabad and the sustainability of the dialogue process. "Prime Minister [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee said that in order to take forward and sustain the dialogue process, violence, hostility and terrorism must be prevented."

At the same time, the two countries are not scheduled to discuss any substantive issues such as nuclear proliferation, terrorism or even review the ongoing ceasefire.

It is expected that India and Pakistan will be able to reach an agreement during the Joint Secretary and Foreign Secretary-level dialogue on a detailed agenda, the time-frame and the sequencing of discussions.

According to the 1997 and 1998 accords, peace and security (including confidence-building measures) and Kashmir were to be discussed separately by the Foreign Secretaries.

The other six subjects are: Siachen (Defence Secretaries), Wullar Barrage/Tulbul navigation project (Secretaries, Water and Power), Sir Creek (Additional Secretary, Defence/Surveyor-General), terrorism and drug trafficking (Home/Interior Secretaries), economic and commercial cooperation (Commerce Secretaries) and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields (Secretaries, Culture).

There will be no tinkering with the agreed subjects, but broad issues such as trade and economic cooperation and promotion of friendly exchanges could be broken down into specifics.

Also, the sequencing of the dialogue will be important. From June 1997 to October 1998, talks were not held between India and Pakistan because Islamabad wanted primacy of place for Kashmir.

Finally, another agreement was hammered out in New York by which peace and security and Jammu and Kashmir were clubbed together by the two sides. The only round of discussions in Islamabad in October 1998 on these twin issues did not yield much, with the Foreign Secretaries publicly differing at the end of the talks on how to deal with the Kashmir question.

It is clear, however, that the current environment in which contacts are taking place between the two countries is substantively different from that in 1997-98. An effective channel of communication, which is non-formal, has been put in place.

It is this line of communication, managed by the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Brajesh Mishra, and Tariq Aziz, a close aide to the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, that produced the January 6 press statement.

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