Thaindian News

By Manish Chand
New Delhi, April 30 (IANS) A day after India and Pakistan decided to resume their peace process at the level of foreign ministers without making much fuss about composite dialogue, the spotlight Friday shifted to the contours and content of the talks between the two neighbours in the future.

At the end of Thursday’s talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani in Thimphu, India studiously avoided any mention of “composite dialogue”, saying both sides should move beyond nomenclature to introspect on the trust deficit entrenched in their relationship and chart the way forward.

The two leaders mandated their foreign ministers and foreign secretaries to work out the modalities of restoring trust, paving the way for substantive dialogue covering all issues between them.

“The days of the composite dialogue are over. Its relevance is over,” Lalit Mansingh, former foreign secretary, told IANS when asked to comment on the future form of dialogue in the aftermath of the thaw in Thimphu.

“A new format will emerge as the foreign ministers and foreign secretaries of the two countries meet in the days ahead,” said Mansingh.

Since the composite dialogue was premised on Pakistan honouring its anti-terror pledge, it was no longer possible to carry on the same track, said a senior official.

Post-26/11, India suspended the composite dialogue with Pakistan that included separate meetings on eight issues — peace and security, including confidence building measures, Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage/Tulbul navigation project, terrorism and drug trafficking, economic and commercial cooperation; and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao hinted at the emerging format of dialogue after the talks. “We don’t have to get stuck to nomenclature as both sides have agreed to restore trust and build the mutual confidence and that we should do,” Rao said.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram is expected to travel to Islamabad in June for the meeting of SAARC home ministers.

While the format of dialogue will become clearer when Rao travels to Islamabad and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi comes to New Delhi in the next few weeks, the climate in India-Pakistan relations that dipped to a new low after 26/11 attacks has definitely changed.

In Rao’s narration of the meeting between Manmohan Singh and Gilani, two phrases hinting at a possible new path in the post-Mumbai labyrinth in India-Pakistan relations stood out.

“Thinking afresh” and an agreement to “honestly take the process forward” are any day better than the usual diplomatic platitudes that clog the India-Pakistan relations.

In refreshing realism, post-talks both sides eschewed triumphalist postures and games of oneupmanship.

Rewind to the July 16, 2009 Sharm el-Sheikh meeting after which the Pakistani side went to town, claiming a diplomatic victory by managing to to insert a reference to Balochistan in the joint statement. Or look back at the the Feb 25 foreign secretary-level talks in New Delhi when the soft-spoken Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir alienated many in India by dismissing New Delhi’s evidence against Hafiz Saeed, the suspect mastermind of the Mumbai carnage, as “fiction”.

A beaming Qureshi summed it up best when he said: “The climate has changed in India-Pakistan relations.”

But if this climate change is to last, the leaderships of the two countries have to find a format of dialogue that is not hostage to terror attacks. To keep talking at the level of foreign ministers and foreign secretaries on “all issues of mutual concern” is an eminently sensible idea and frees up talks from the burden of unrealistic expectations.

Not that the two sides have moved away from their respective positions, but there is now a spirit of give and take and a deeper realisation that freezing talks only give outside powers extra leverage in their internal affairs.

During the talks, Manmohan Singh reiterated India’s core concerns over terrorism, the need for swift prosecution of the Mumbai terrorists, the spike in infiltration and the activities of Hafiz Saeed.

Pakistan, on its part, promised to bring the trial of the Mumbai accused to a swift conclusion and renewed its anti-terror pledge.

Islamabad also aired its concerns over the Indus water issue that is now emerging as a new front of polemical warfare between the two countries. But in the end, a willingness to accommodate each other’s concerns and the resolve to put the their twisted relations back on track won the day.