Updated: Sun, Sep 29 2013. 03 44 PM IST
New Delhi: It was billed as a meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan aimed at finding ways to re-energise a floundering peace process but queering the pitch just ahead of the talks were news reports that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had likened Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to a “village woman.”
The meeting between Singh and Sharif—expected over breakfast—expected to give some momentum to the bilateral peace process stalled after the killing of five Indian soldiers along the India-Pakistan border in Kashmir on 6 August. The talks that were restarted in February 2011, after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, had made substantial progress, promoting economic linkages between the two countries. But an attack along the border in January when two Indian soldiers were beheaded reportedly by Pakistani troops and the second incident on 6 August stalled the dialogue process.
The run-up to Sunday’s meeting has been rocky. First came the twin terror attacks in Kashmir last week on a police station and an Army camp, considered the worst in a decade. At least 10 people including a lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army were killed and this came just a day after Singh himself confirmed the meeting with Sharif in a departure statement as he left for the US.
Despite opposition anger over the Kashmir attacks, Singh said he would meet Sharif. And on Sunday, hours before the crucial meeting, came Sharif’s reported comment that Singh who met US PresidentBarack Obama on 27 September and discussed cross border terrorism emanating from Pakistan, was behaving like a “dehati aurat” or “village woman.” Sharif who met journalists Hamid Mir of Pakistan andNDTV’s Barkha Dutt over breakfast, reportedly told them that Singh seems to have met Obama for the purpose of complaining about him.
On Saturday a tough talking Singh set the tone for Sunday’s meeting in his address to the UN General Assembly where he did not mince words as he described Pakistan as “epicentre of terrorism in South Asia” and urged the UN member countries to show zero tolerance towards “states sheltering, arming, training or financing terrorists.”
“Terrorism remains a grave threat to security and stability everywhere and extracts a heavy toll of innocent lives around the world. From Africa to Asia, we have seen several manifestations of this menace in the last few days alone,” Singh said in a statement that analysts said underlined a parallel between the terrorist attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall on 21 September by the al Qaeda linked al Shabaab group in which about 70 people were killed and the twin attacks in Kashmir last week in which 10 people were killed. The Kashmir attack in which several policemen and army soldiers were killed has been described as the worst militant attack in a decade.
“State-sponsored cross-border terrorism is of particular concern to India, also on account of the fact that the epicentre of terrorism in our region is located in our neighbourhood in Pakistan,” Singh said in his speech.
India accuses Pakistan of using terrorism as a means to undermine its rule over the Himalayan region of Kashmir that both countries claim in full but administer in parts. The Indian government also blames Pakistan for its support to Islamist militant groups that have targeted India through suicide attacks and bomb blasts including the November 2008 Mumbai attack in which 10 militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group targeted many locations in Mumbai. India has also been unhappy with the slow pace of the trial in Pakistan of the seven detained for planning the Mumbai attack. Sections of the Indian government are wary of Sharif’s links with the Jamaat-ud-Dawa group, deemed a charity in Pakistan though banned as a terrorist organisation in many countries, that is headed by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. Saeed is the founder of the LeT. But other sections in India particularly the business community were buoyed by Sharif assuming office as Pakistan Prime Minister in June given his pro-business tilt.
“I think the Prime Minister said the right things with the right amount of force and clarity and no one can fault him on this,” said former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
In his speech, Singh recalled that Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif had spoken of “making a new beginning” with India during his speech to the UN General Assembly.
“I reciprocate his sentiments and am looking forward to meeting him tomorrow (Sunday). India is committed sincerely to resolving all issues with Pakistan, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, through bilateral dialogue on the basis of the Shimla Agreement. However, for progress to be made, it is imperative that the territory of Pakistan and the areas under its control are not utilized for aiding and abetting terrorism directed against India. It is equally important that the terrorist machinery that draws its sustenance from Pakistan be shut down,” Singh said.
On the Kashmir dispute that has bedevilled India-Pakistan since independence, Singh said: “There must be a clear understanding of the fact that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and that there can never, ever, be a compromise with the unity and territorial integrity of India.”
Sibal agreed with C. Uday Bhaskar of the South Asia Monitor think-tank who said that Singh “touched on all the relevant points that make up India’s official position—that the Kashmir dispute should be sorted out bilaterally, that Pakistan should not use its territory for terrorist attacks against India.”
“I think this is what he will say to the Pakistan Prime Minister when he meets him,” Bhaskar said.
In his comments to the UN General Assembly on Friday, Sharif, in a reference to Kashmir and alleged Indian human rights violations, had said that “the suffering of the people cannot be brushed under the carpet, because of power politics”.
According to media reports, Sharif also said that the “issue of Jammu and Kashmir was presented to the Security Council in January 1948; and yet the issue remains unresolved after nearly seven decades”.
“We stand ready to re-engage with India in a substantive and purposeful dialogue. I am looking forward to meeting Prime Minister Singh here in New York to make a new beginning,” said Sharif. “We have a solid basis to do that. We can build on the Lahore Accord signed in 1999, which contained a road map for the resolution of our differences through peaceful negotiations,” he was quoted as saying. “I am committed to working for a peaceful and economically prosperous region. This is what our people want and this is what I have long aspired for,” he added.
Sibal was of the view that since Sharif had articulated the known Pakistani position on Kashmir and ties with India, there was little room to expect any breakthroughs at the Singh-Sharif meeting. He agreed that Sharif had made some statements on peace with India but given his statement at the UN, “I cant see the need to attach so much importance to this summit. I think Sharif should be put on the defensive on the issue of terrorism,” he said.
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