Daily DAWN
Sept 27, 2008
IT is hoped that Thursday’s meeting between President Asif Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will help undo the grave damage that bilateral relations have suffered in recent months.
Among other agreements, a pledge has been made to revive the composite dialogue process which was dealt a severe blow in July this year when the Indian embassy in Kabul came under ferocious attack.
New Delhi, possibly at the instigation of Kabul, was quick to accuse Pakistan of direct involvement in the bombing.
The severity of the charge and the undiplomatic language used by Indian officials was shocking, and tensions were ratcheted up further by subsequent clashes across the LoC and a string of bombings in India.
Hopefully New Delhi will show more tact in the future. Instead of being broadcast to the world, any and all terrorism-related concerns must be addressed discreetly and at the proper forum, which in this case would be the Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism.
Given this backdrop, it will take more than a photo-op meeting in New York to restore trust between the two neighbours but at least a fresh start seems to have been made.
Prime Minister Singh has also vowed to resolve the ongoing dispute triggered by the Baglihar Dam project in Indian-held Kashmir. Pakistan has not been receiving anywhere near its share of water envisaged under the Indus Water Treaty, and agriculture this side of Wagah has suffered as a result. It was also announced that at least four trade routes are to be opened, one of them across the LoC.
This is a welcome move and the plan’s materialisation clearly the need of the day. In this age of regionalism, both countries and their citizens will benefit from freer trade and cheaper goods. In this connection, attention must be given to breathing new life into the comatose South Asia Free Trade Area agreement.
Under Safta, customs duties on most products traded between Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka were to be lifted by 2012. But there has been no movement on this count, to the detriment of the region.
There was also no mention in New York of the popular uprising that is gathering strength in Indian-held Kashmir or the brutality with which security forces there are trying to suppress it. Understandable, perhaps, given that an attempt was being made to ease tensions, not inflame passions.
Still, what President Zardari recently called “the main hurdle in the way towards peace and full normalisation of relations between Pakistan and India” has to be discussed sooner than later. This is not to suggest that the two countries should put everything else on hold until the Kashmir issue is resolved to the satisfaction of all parties to the dispute. But the plight of the Kashmiri people cannot be ignored either.
