History repeated itself on Thursday, only this time the protagonists were different. Five months after Pakistan foreign secretary Salman Bashir’s press conference in New Delhi degenerated into rhetoric, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s joint media interaction with external affairs minister S.M. Krishna in Islamabad
Thursday was reduced to a slanging match, aided in part by a restive Pakistani media which raised the issues of India’s alleged attempts to destabilise Balochistan and human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.
The proceedings would have drawn to a conclusion after Mr Qureshi took what was to be the last question from the media. In response to the question about Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed spewing vitriol against India, Mr Qureshi said he agreed that hate speeches must not be allowed to vitiate the atmosphere. In the same breath, he dismissed home secretary G.K. Pillai’s remarks accusing Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of controlling and coordinating the Mumbai attacks as “uncalled for”. He had barely rounded off his response by saying that India and Pakistan should “refrain from negative propaganda” when members of the Pakistani media urged him to take more questions. The minister promptly agreed and then followed a flurry of questions from a section of the Pakistani media about Jammu and Kashmir and Balochistan.
Responding to the questions, Mr Krishna firmly but politely let his audience know that the recent developments in Jammu and Kashmir were an internal matter of India and that there is an elected government in the state led by a legitimate chief minister. He reassured his hosts that there were any number of institutional networks and NGOs in the state and at the Centre to maintain law and order. He explained to them that maintenance of law and order under the Indian Constitution was the exclusive prerogative of the state government and if it felt it was unable to maintain law and order, then it could always turn to New Delhi for support. He asserted that the state government and the appropriate agencies were empowered to deal with any rights violations and they will be taken up if brought to the notice of the human rights commission.
Overshadowed by the avoidable exchange of words was Mr Qureshi’s remarks made in his opening statement that Pakistan would “very seriously” take steps on the leads provided by India about the Mumbai attacks, particularly in the wake of additional information gleaned from the interrogation of David Coleman Headley.
Mr Qureshi also said Pakistan can be expected to take steps to hasten the trial of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six others who are being tried in a Pakistani court on charges of planning and facilitating the Mumbai attacks. The court has asked the Pakistan government to respond to Lakhvi’s bail plea by Saturday when the matter will come up for hearing again. He said Pakistan had agreed to reach an amicable settlement of the Sir Creek issue and it had asked the Indian side to furnish its proposal, conveyed orally, in writing to the Pakistan government. Of particular interest to India was Mr Qureshi’s remark that Pakistan recognised the progress made in previous rounds of bilateral dialogues and that both sides were keen on picking up the threads of the stalled dialogue from where it was left off.
However, Mr Qureshi asserted that it would be difficult to take the dialogue process forward without the resolution of outstanding issues which are of “core importance” to Pakistan. “(We) need to look at the larger picture and all issues have to be dealt in tandem,” he said, adding that India should understand Pakistan’s point of view just as Pakistan respected India’s positions. He declared he had accepted an invitation from Mr Krishna to visit India in the near future, possibly by the end of the year.
In the marathon talks that continued into the late afternoon, both sides discussed a range of issues, such as economic cooperation, Siachen, people-to-people contacts, cross-LoC trade and travel, and exchange of prisoners and fishermen. “We have made progress on Kashmir-related CBMs,” Mr Qureshi exclaimed, to which Mr Krishna responded by saying that the biggest CBM that could be taken by Pakistan would be to go after the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks and bring them to justice, and to unravel the full conspiracy behind it. “I am going back with the hope there will be further action based on the leads (India provided based on the interrogation of Headley),” Mr Krishna added.
During the joint press conference, Mr Qureshi said he had raised the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and the recent developments there with Mr Krishna after three Kashmir-based organisations wrote to him asking him to take it up with the Indian delegation. He maintained that the imposition of curfew, the loss of life, and the deployment of Indian armed forces in the state were of concern to “everyone”. Mr Krishna interjected to assert that infiltration from across the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir had increased by 40 per cent between 2008 and 2009. To which Mr Qureshi responded by saying that infiltration is not the policy of Pakistan or any of its intelligence agencies. He qualified it by saying that there could be some “individuals” who might have crossed over but India was free to deal with them “firmly”. He went on to say that he had suggested to the Indian side that the directors-general of military operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan could meet every week and also hold border flag meetings.
The issue of Balochistan reared its ugly head again exactly a year after it figured in the joint statement issued after the talks between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Responding to a question, Mr Qureshi said he had raised the issue of the attempts to destabilise Balochistan in his talks with Mr Krishna. He hastened to add that the Indian side had reassured him that it had no interest in destabilising the Pakistani province. Mr Krishna intervened again, recalling that Pakistan had not shared even a shred of evidence, with India, in the year gone by.