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Dialogue comes to a standstill

ISLAMABAD: The immediate fallout of the Indian government’s allegation that the Mumbai attacks could be traced back to Pakistan is that New Delhi has pressed the “pause” button on the composite dialogue process, according to official sources.

The Pakistani government has called an all-party conference on Tuesday to discuss the implications of the allegation and to evolve a consensus on the response.

Officials from India and Pakistan were to hold a number of meetings as part of the fifth round of the eight-subject talks in the coming weeks, but sources said that for the present, there would be no discussions on scheduling them.

The meetings now indefinitely on hold include those between the Defence Secretaries on Siachen, between the Water Secretaries, the Commerce Secretaries, and the Culture Secretaries.

The meeting of technical experts on Sir Creek was postponed a few days before the Mumbai attacks, but it is unlikely to be rescheduled.

The only meetings that took place in the fifth round of the composite dialogue were the Foreign Secretary talks in July, under the shadow of the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, and between the two Interior Secretaries that ended on November 26, hours before the Mumbai attacks.

A visit by the Indian Indus Water Commissioner G. Aranganathan took place as scheduled on Sunday – he visited the Marala headworks where the Chenab waters enter Pakistan – but another by a member of the Planning Commission that was to begin on Monday has been put off.

India is also unlikely to entertain any high-level visits from Pakistan, and no such visits are likely from India either, unless Islamabad either offers to send officials in connection with the Mumbai investigations, or invites Indian officials over to share some information with any investigation that it starts on its side.

Officials said New Delhi has not yet “handed over” any evidence about the alleged Pakistani link, but Indian officials have briefed their counterparts on the information emanating from the interrogation of the one Laskhar-e-Taiba suspect taken into custody.

On Monday, Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal met Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir with a demarche. It outlined India’s position that “elements” within Pakistan were involved in the attack, and asked the government to take action against them on the information provided by the Indian investigators.

Indian officials here denied local reports that “threatening” language was used by an Indian official towards Pakistan. The reports first emanated from a briefing for journalists by ISI officials at which it was said that External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee made threatening remarks when he spoke to Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

The reports have persisted despite Mr. Qureshi’s denial that a letter with “obnoxious” wording was handed over to him by the Indian side as he was leaving New Delhi last Saturday. At his press conference on Saturday evening, the Foreign Minister said the Indian government had not accused the Pakistani government, and that all conversations were carried out in “diplomatic” language.

Meanwhile, the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) said on Monday that it would participate in Tuesday’s conference with the purpose of advising the government to take a “transparent but firm and dignified stand” in relation to the charges levelled by India.

“We want to send out the message that Pakistan stands united, that it does not want to destabilise the region and that we are supportive of the government. If India has any evidence linking the Mumbai attacks to any individual or group or agency in Pakistan, they must share it with Pakistan at the institutional level, and Pakistan should act against such elements, whoever they are,” said Leader of the Opposition Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan.

“We have no skeletons in the cupboard. We should be afraid if we have something to hide, but we are quite clear that Pakistan has nothing to do with these attacks. We are the targets and victims of terrorism, not the architects or catalysts of terrorist attacks,” he said.

Hours before he spoke, at least nine people were killed and 27 injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-packed vehicle into a school van near a security check post in Mingora near Swat. Three school children were among the dead.

The attacker presumably wanted to hit the check post but collided with the school van while overtaking it, officials said.

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