‘K’ crutch to kill ‘T’ talks: Pak simply had no other choice

Pakistan has admitted it. It cannot talk to India about any issue, from terrorism to onion prices, without Kashmir as a fall-back topic.

India is now well within its rights to call of the NSA-level talks and end the drama before it turns into more of a farce than it already is.

Here are the reasons:

1.Pakistan’s NSA Sartaj Aziz raised the issue of Balochistan.

2.Aziz says Kashmir is most important issue.

3.He is disturbed by reports of detention of Hurriyat leaders in Delhi

4.He says objecting to Pakistan’s proposed meeting with Hurriyat flimsy excuse to cancel talks

5.Even as he says all this, there is a cease fire violation in Poonch.

All of the above, directly or indirectly, are linked to the Kashmir issue. They are not linked to terrorism, which was and is the subject matter of the proposed NSA talks. That was what was decided in Ufa.

This is the critical portion of the joint statement at Ufa on July, 2015:

“….They agreed that India and Pakistan have a collective responsibility to ensure peace and promote development. To do so, they are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues.

Both leaders condemned terrorism in all its forms and agreed to cooperate with each other to eliminate this menace from South Asia.

They also agreed on the following steps to be taken by the two sides:

1. A meeting in New Delhi between the two NSAs to discuss all issues connected to terrorism.

The statement underscores the importance of Kashmir by agreeing to discuss “all outstanding issues”. The statement, at the same time, clearly distinguishes between Kashmir and Terrorism by proposing a NSA-level meeting only to discuss “all issues connected to terrorism”. Naturally, Sartaj Aziz mouths another interpretation of the Ufa statement which belies facts.

Aziz goes a step further displaying some dossiers which claim to be about RAW’s role in Pakistan. In the same breath he raises the issue of Balochistan where Pakistan has always been claiming of RAW’s involvement. The two elements do not connect directly or indirectly to either Kashmir or Terrorism. He probably raised them to play on the criticism former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh faced in India after the India-Pakistan joint statement at Sharm-el-Sheikh in July, 2009 saw the mention of Balochistan.

What else did Sartaj Aziz have to say about the proposed NSA-level talks? Anything about an update on the Mumbai attacks? Or about the Usman fellow? Or about any of the terror outfits his government shelters? Nothing.

The moment Pakistan opens its mouth at a meeting on terrorism, it will find itself on the defensive. So, it is practical thinking on its part to not be pushed into such an obvious corner. The proposed talks were to be specifically on the issue of terrorism, as the Ufa statement shows. So, it was clear to both India and Pakistan even before the ink dried on the Ufa statement that the NSA-level talks were doomed. It was thereafter a matter of how diplomatic or brazen the pull-out of the talks would be. India was saved the embarrassment by Pakistan pulling the plug first.

The mention of Balochistan in the Sharm-el-Sheikh agreement of 2009 was enough for myopic Manmohan Singh baiters, including the BJP and the Congress, to flay him. However, they failed to see something else which was included in that same statement, something which should have by now become the corner stone of India’s foreign policy concerning bilaterals with Pakistan.

And that was this sentence: “Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed.”

Now, what is the “Composite Dialogue” about? It is about Kashmir and everything else including Kashmir! The statement also clarifies that the “Composite Dialogue” is not about Terrorism. The statement says India and Pakistan agree not to “bracket” the two – exactly what Sartaj Aziz did today.

Sartaj Aziz is aware of this. His masters in Pakistan are aware of this. That is why they created the Hurriyat pretext and brought in Kashmir to ensure that the talks would never come off.

As for India, its reply to Aziz’s statement(s) should be a simple reiteration of the above sentence. Nothing more, nothing less.