POLITICS: India Cranks up Diplomatic Offensive against Pakistan

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jan 7 2002 (IPS) - India on Monday again ruled out talks with Pakistan to defuse a military standoff along their common border, but began international diplomatic moves aimed at isolating the neighbour it accuses of arming and supporting terrorists in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

“Where is the question of a dialogue (with Pakistan) when there is no change of attitude towards terrorism,” India’s Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said after emerging from a meeting of India’s Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), chaired by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

“You cannot have one attitude for the west and another for the rest of the world,” Singh said, accusing Pakistan of “double standards”.

The CCS meeting was the first after Vajpayee and Singh returned from a South Asian summit over the weekend in Nepal. But that summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) seemed to exacerbate tensions between the two countries, far from defusing a warlike situation.

An Indian newspaper, for instance, termed as ‘SAARCasm” their brief theatrical exchanges in Kathmandu, highlighted by handshakes between Vajpayee and Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

Right after the summit that failed to produce a breakthrough, British Prime Minister Tony Blair engaged in shuttle diplomacy between India and Pakistan, stopping by New Delhi Sunday and then Islamabad Monday and asking the countries to step back from conflict and engage in dialogue.

India’s leaders accuse Pakistan of joining the international coalition against terrorism in Afghanistan but continuing to promote violent separatism in the divided territory of Kashmir, the complete possession of which is disputed by the two countries.

On Sunday, Vajpayee and Blair released a ‘New Delhi Declaration’ in which they condemned “all those who support terrorism, those that finance, train or provide support for terrorism”

“We reject the arguments of those who attempt to justify terrorism which in all its forms must be condemned unambiguously and eradicated wherever it exists,” said the declaration, which analysts here interpret as a warning to Islamabad.

Continuing its efforts to get as much international support as it can, New Delhi is also discussing security with visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who arrived here Monday for a three-day visit to discuss security issues and what both countries say is their experience with terrorism.

But from Islamabad, Musharraf said his government was “taking steps within Pakistan to bring some degree of normalcy, balance, tolerance in society, checking any form of militancy”.

Under domestic pressure not to be seen as giving in too much to India, he said that “final decisions” would be made and announced in the next few days. He added that he rejected terrorism in “all its forms”.

Blair said: “Both countries in these very difficult times understand the need both to defeat terrorism and resolve difficult issues through dialogue and partnership.”

Last week, the ‘New York Times Service’, quoting senior Pakistani officials, reported that Musharraf had ordered his country’s shadowy Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to stop backing Islamic militant groups that are linked to the al Qaeda network that is fighting in Kashmir. The report added that Musharraf had asked ISI to continue support for groups with local roots.

Indian foreign ministry officials cited the report as proof of its oft-repeated allegation that Pakistan has been supporting and financing terrorist activity in Kashmir.

Pakistan has officially denied such support and refused to hand over any of a list of 20 terrorists that India has demanded extradited as precondition for talks. Instead, Islamabad says, it can try any accused persons in its territory.

Vajpayee placed small value to a handshake offered him with a flourish by Musharraf, as South Asia’s top leadership watched at the Nepal summit. He said he was rewarded for inviting the Pakistani leader to a bilateral summit in Agra in July with “terrorist attacks” on Kashmir’s provincial assembly in Srinagar in October, and another one in December on the Parliament House in New Delhi.

Apart from massing troops and armour along the border with Pakistan, India has resorted to a series of graded sanctions, the first round of which saw the halving of the strengths of the missions in each other’s country, the downgrading of the missions to the level of deputy high commissioner and a ban on overflights by civilian aircraft.

There are indications that India may further increase diplomatic pressure by abrogating a treaty on sharing the waters of the Indus river, considered favourable to Pakistan, and withdrawing the most favoured nation (MFN) status it unilaterally granted to its neighbour for improved bilateral trade.

As Blair flew out Monday, Vajpayee turned to receive Peres, who told reporters here that “the world is now divided between those who harbour terror and those who fight terror”.

“Israel and India share a lot of common issues these days particularly in the field of counter-terrorism,” an official accompanying Peres said.

Interestingly, both Peres and Blair have pledged support for New Delhi’s long-standing demand that India be given a seat in a restructured United Nations Security Council. Peres even said India should be allowed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) because of its stand on terrorism.

Peres was in time to hold talks with Lal Krishna Advani, India’s hawkish home minister, who flies Tuesday to the United States on a week- long trip to shore up India’s new international diplomatic offensive to counter what he frequently refers to as “Pakistan’s proxy war against India”.

After the meeting, Advani told reporters his aim was to get the “world’s two biggest democracies” to cooperate more closely in the international fight against terrorism of which, he said, India was a major victim.

“I was asked by the visiting dignitaries (Peres and Blair) whether there will be a war between India and Pakistan and both have asked us to exercise restraint and my answer was that we are already fighting a different kind of a war – a proxy war,” Advani said.

“After the December 13 attack (on Parliament by a five-man suicide squad) Prime Minister Vajpayee said that the time had come to fight a decisive war against terrorism. We have to decide whether we continue to deal with terrorism the way we have been doing or take steps to end it,” he pointed out.

“We have been taking diplomatic steps to put pressure on Pakistan. We have been told by world leaders that Pakistan is taking steps to curb terrorism. If it happens, it would be good. But, unfortunately, there has been no change in Pakistan’s attitude,” Advani said.

Advani’s visit will be closely followed by another by Defence Minister George Fernandes, who will lead a high-level defence delegation to the United States Jan.15.

During his one-week tour, Fernandes is expected to meet U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and hold discussions at the Pentagon on terrorism and enhancing military cooperation.