POLITICS: India Makes Another Peace Overture to Pakistan

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Apr 18 2003 (IPS) - For the third time in his five years as India’s prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee has extended the hand of peace to neighbouring Pakistan, offering to settle the long-standing dispute over Kashmir through talks.

"I have said that every issue should be settled by talks. We are prepared – internal as well as external issues. Not guns but brotherhood alone can resolve issues," Vajpayee said at a public meeting Friday in Srinagar, the state’s summer capital.

"Again we extend (to Pakistan) the hand of friendship but it has to be a two-way street – both sides should learn to live together,” Vajpayee said in the nationally televised speech, his words ringing with caution from his earlier failed attempts at peacemaking, which attracted wide criticism at home.

In Islamabad, Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali was quick to react and was quoted saying ”We welcome it, we appreciate it.”

Pakistan’s Information Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed was reported as saying that if all outstanding issues including Kashmir were to be resolved through talks, then Pakistan was ready to hold talks anywhere.

On Feb 20 1999, Vajpayee symbolically crossed the Indo-Pakistan border in a bus and was received by the then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif before the two went on to sign the Lahore Declaration binding the neighbours to a dialogue process to settle outstanding issues, including Kashmir.

But hardly had the ink dried on the document when Pakistan’s army led by Gen Pervez Musharraf launched an armed intrusion at Kargil on the Line of Control (LoC), which runs through the divided territory of Kashmir, triggering off an undeclared but bloody war.

The war ended after then U.S. President Bill Clinton prevailed on Pakistan to withdraw the intrusion, which was followed by a military coup in Pakistan in which Sharif was ousted by Musharraf in October 1999 and declared himself president.

Vajpayee initially took the position that he would not deal with a military ruler but surprised observers by inviting Musharraf to India for a summit meeting which took place in the historic city of Agra in July 2001.

But the summit stumbled over the thorny issue of Kashmir and there was a sharp escalation in incidents of cross-border violence by what India says are Pakistan-based militant groups, including a daring attempt to storm India’s Parliament in a bomb-laden car on Dec. 13 2001.

India responded to the attacks by aggressively moving some 700,000 of its troops to the Indo-Pakistan border accompanied by tank formations, bringing the two countries once again to the brink of a nuclear exchange. The confrontation, which lasted most of 2002, was defused only through intense international ”shuttle diplomacy” between Islamabad and New Delhi, led by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Straw extracted a promise from Musharraf that he would move to ”permanently end” cross-border incursions.

India withdrew the bulk of its troops armour to peacetime locations, but declared that it would engage in talks only when discerned concrete evidence that Pakistan had indeed stopped support for militant groups active in Kashmir.

But Musharraf said in a televised speech in December 2002 that Pakistan would have responded to an Indian invasion with ”unconventional” weapons. Islamabad showed no signs of reigning in cross-border militancy, officials here say.

India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes responded to Musharraf’s threat by saying: ”We can take a bomb or two or more but when we respond there will be no Pakistan.”

When suspected members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (Soldiers of God) lined up and shot dead 24 Hindus in the Kashmiri village of Nadimarg on Mar. 24, India’s leaders. including Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, publicly talked of ”pre-emptive strikes” across the border.

As a war of words started up again between the neighbours, Powell announced that Washington would address the South Asian problem as soon as the war on Iraq was over and his deputy Richard Armitage is expected to lead a resumption of shuttle diplomacy within weeks.

Vajpayee’s speech on Friday seemed to be aimed at Armitage’s impending visit and he harped on his previous attempts at building peace with Pakistan.

”We did not succeed (with the trip to Lahore) and got the reply in the form of Kargil. Still we did not lose heart. We invited General Sahib (Musharraf) to Agra in the hope that sitting in the shade of the Taj Mahal would usher in an era of peace. That also did not work,” he lamented.

But there are signs that this time India and Pakistan may seriously get down to talks as result of pressure from a Washington that seems determined to put a cap on the nuclear and missile programmes of both countries, if not remove them altogether.

”The challenge for the American government will be to use a mixture of pressure, diplomacy and financial aid to convince Pakistan to start being serious about cutting its links with terrorists operating from within its borders,” former U.S. Congressman Mervyn Dymally wrote in the ‘Wall Street Journal’ Wednesday.