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Treating Taliban with kid gloves and making a show of hunting them down with the US is counter-productive. Islamabad cannot win this way.
Pakistan's military acted with speed to return to the Indian military a helicopter that had inadvertently crossed the Line of Control on October 23. Almost immediately thereafter, New Delhi's 'candle-light vigil brigade' jumped to the conclusion that there had been a 'change of heart' in Pakistan's hard-boiled military. South Block is also abuzz with the talk of new Pakistani 'concessions' on trade, forgetting that, even before Pakistan's Minister of Commerce arrived in Delhi, he had promised that Pakistan would grant India the 'most favoured nation' treatment, which it is in any case obliged to grant under its World Trade Organisation and South Asia Free Trade Agreement commitments. This did not happen and we are now told that it will happen "very soon". Let us wait and see what transpires, instead of jumping with joy prematurely, merely because Islamabad seeks to fulfill commitments made, but not honoured.
With around 2,00,000 troops deployed along the Durand Line and the US breathing down his neck, General Parvez Ashfaq Kayani realizes that this is not the time to allow his protégés in the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba to stage 26/11 type strikes on India. This may force a politically weakened Government in India, for once, to respond strongly. So, for the present, India should realistically expect that, while we will hear sweet noises of friendship and trade from Islamabad and Rawalpindi, General Kayani and his corps commanders will carry on 'bleeding' us in manner that inconveniences, but does not infuriate, us. Given its disinclination to yield to American pressures for reining in its protégés like Mullah Omar and Sirajuddin Haqqani in Afghanistan, the Pakistan Army is hardly likely to give up using Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed and Maulana Masood Azhar against India.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's visit to New Delhi on October 4 signalled a new turn in the geopolitics of India's western AfPak neighbourhood. New Delhi and Kabul had announced in May that they were finalising the text of a strategic partnership agreement. The assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani by the Taliban appears to have triggered a sense of urgency for concluding this agreement, during the New Delhi Summit. Apart from the security dimensions of the India-Afghanistan relationship, the visit also signalled the Indian interest in investing in the minerals sector of Afghanistan's national economy. A consortium of Indian firms is bidding for the development of the Hajigak Iron Ore Mines in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province. The project would involve the development of the mines, construction of a railroad for transhipping the iron ore and the construction of a steel plant.......................
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Pakistan plays a double game
Pakistan's military acted with speed to return to the Indian military a helicopter that had inadvertently crossed the Line of Control on October 23. Almost immediately thereafter, New Delhi's 'candle-light vigil brigade' jumped to the conclusion that there had been a 'change of heart' in Pakistan's hard-boiled military. South Block is also abuzz with the talk of new Pakistani 'concessions' on trade, forgetting that, even before Pakistan's Minister of Commerce arrived in Delhi, he had promised that Pakistan would grant India the 'most favoured nation' treatment, which it is in any case obliged to grant under its World Trade Organisation and South Asia Free Trade Agreement commitments. This did not happen and we are now told that it will happen "very soon". Let us wait and see what transpires, instead of jumping with joy prematurely, merely because Islamabad seeks to fulfill commitments made, but not honoured.
With around 2,00,000 troops deployed along the Durand Line and the US breathing down his neck, General Parvez Ashfaq Kayani realizes that this is not the time to allow his protégés in the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba to stage 26/11 type strikes on India. This may force a politically weakened Government in India, for once, to respond strongly. So, for the present, India should realistically expect that, while we will hear sweet noises of friendship and trade from Islamabad and Rawalpindi, General Kayani and his corps commanders will carry on 'bleeding' us in manner that inconveniences, but does not infuriate, us. Given its disinclination to yield to American pressures for reining in its protégés like Mullah Omar and Sirajuddin Haqqani in Afghanistan, the Pakistan Army is hardly likely to give up using Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed and Maulana Masood Azhar against India.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's visit to New Delhi on October 4 signalled a new turn in the geopolitics of India's western AfPak neighbourhood. New Delhi and Kabul had announced in May that they were finalising the text of a strategic partnership agreement. The assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani by the Taliban appears to have triggered a sense of urgency for concluding this agreement, during the New Delhi Summit. Apart from the security dimensions of the India-Afghanistan relationship, the visit also signalled the Indian interest in investing in the minerals sector of Afghanistan's national economy. A consortium of Indian firms is bidding for the development of the Hajigak Iron Ore Mines in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province. The project would involve the development of the mines, construction of a railroad for transhipping the iron ore and the construction of a steel plant.......................
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Pakistan plays a double game
