Pak hasn't done enough against terror: India - India - NEWS - The Times of India
Pak hasn't done enough against terror: India
Indrani Bagchi , TNN 25 July 2009, 12:50am IST
NEW DELHI: In damage-control mode after the Sharm el-Sheikh joint statement delinking terrorism from composite dialogue and bringing Balochistan into India-Pak talks, the government has stressed that Islamabad has not taken enough action against terror for the stalled talks to get underway again.
Top level sources in government said no matter how the controversial joint statement was read, India is not going to restart composite dialogue and the engagement with Pakistan will not move beyond a "limited" exchange focussed on terrorism.
The slow retreat from Sharm el-Sheikh, which has now seen the government virtually abandoning the formulation, may well set the stage for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention when Lok Sabha discusses his foreign tours next week. He can be expected to speak strongly about Pakistan delivering on its anti-terror commitments before any substantive issues are addressed.
But though the government is revising its position, this is not how Pakistan is looking at matters. Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, talking to Indian journalists, said Islamabad would be pushing to address the "outstanding" issues by resuming the composite dialogue soon. The joint statement "delinked" composite dialogue from action against terrorism and Pakistan believes it has anyway done more than enough.
Qureshi said, "There is recognition by the Indian foreign secretary (Shivshankar Menon) that cooperation they (India) have received from Pakistan on this occasion is unprecedented. The fact that Pakistan reiterates its position on cooperating with India in bringing perpetrators of Mumbai attacks to justice is a positive development."
Indian sources made it clear that Pakistan has not given any dossier to India on Balochistan. At Sharm el-Sheikh, it was Singh who told Gilani that India was ready to have a conversation on alleged Indian activities in the troubled area of Balochistan.
But if the government was keen on re-engaging with Pakistan, the very nature of the joint statement, and the furore it has caused, will make it difficult for UPA government to resume composite dialogue with Pakistan any time soon.
Sources said the composite dialogue, even when it was on, did not prevent any of the terrorist attacks on India from Pakistan terror groups. This undermines one of the basic premises — absence of violence — from the dialogue.
Given this view of realities, government is toying with the idea of reframing the dialogue with Pakistan. For instance, after the shock of the sudden invitation by ISI chief Shuja Pasha for talks with India had abated, the government is considering ways to "broaden" their view on such engagement.
After all, it is the ISI that runs most of the anti-India operations, using terrorism as Pakistani state policy. So while they are the problem or definitely a part of it, sources in government are wondering whether it might make sense to open another channel of communication, while keeping the civilian government as the main interlocutor.
The reason for this is Pakistan's fragmented power structure, where it no longer makes sense to talk to only one element of that structure. There is also very little expectation that Pakistan will take any serious steps on terror. Several people would remain in custody but that might be it. Leaders like Hafiz Saeed are unlikely to go back to jail and the prosecution on the Mumbai masterminds like Zaki-ud-din Lakhvi and Zarar Shah is likely to take a long time.
While government appears to be brushing aside implications of including Balochistan in the India-Pak ambit, Pakistan has actually been keeping the issue alive. Since 2006, when India and Pakistan started the joint anti-terror mechanism after the Havana NAM summit, Pakistan had supplied India with "leads" of India's alleged actions in Balochistan.
Most of these so-called leads were found to be fake, said sources and are intended to be a way of countering specific information on Lashkar and Jaish activities. Pakistan had also given "dossiers" on India to the US, UK and France around the same time, which also failed to receive traction. And this happened around the time that then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf was straffing Balochistan to quell insurgency, and killed Akbar Bugti, the Baloch leader in the process.
All of this is now likely to be brought up to be mixed up with India's claims on Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in India. The fallout of this diplomatic faux pas is likely to be felt for some time to come.