Pakistan drops Kashmir at SAARC

JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, April 4, 2007 : Pakistan prime minister Shaukat Aziz is believed not to have even raised the Kashmir issue in any serious manner during his 50-minute-long conversation with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this morning.

Considering Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not see fit to even mention the word ``terrorism’’ in his closing speech – even though the SAARC Declaration mentions the need to combat it several times – perhaps both sides had made a compact to play down the linkage.

The PM, in his closing remarks, only said that ``We must also win the war against all forms of extremism and intolerance in our region.’’

At the end of a two-day summit, SAARC leaders did not agree with the Indian proposal for a regional mutual legal assistance treaty, offering to exchange information on terrorists and criminals, so that they could be pursued by the country to which they had fled.

But Pakistan is said to have disagreed, saying that such matters were better discussed bilaterally, so Sri Lanka offered to host a meeting to discuss the idea, and the matter was dropped.

So at a press conference today, when External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee was asked about Aziz’s remarks at a news conference the day before on Kashmir being the ``key dispute, the core issue,’’ Mukherjee pointed out with some aplomb that ``he was not very perturbed.’’

Meanwhile, the Pakistani foreign office press release, issued after the meeting between Aziz and the PM, stated that Aziz ``underscored the importance of resolving Kashmir for durable peace and a brighter future of South Asia.’’

But Indian sources said that unlike his public pronouncements yesterday, when Aziz had even linked enhanced trade with a resolution of the Kashmir dispute, the ``K’’ word was hardly raised in any meaningful manner in the meeting with the PM.

Today, though, the Pakistan PM, with some alacrity offered to export cement to India. Both prime ministers discussed the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, a major economic decision, as well as the need to open more bank branches in each other’s countries, possibly so that these could deal with enhanced trade flows.

Clearly, the back channel conversation between the two countries seem to be going so well that Shaukat Aziz, perhaps, needed to reiterate the importance of the Kashmir dispute publicly for his home audience, and play it down in private conversations with the Indian leadership.

Mukherjee put his finger on the nub of the matter when he pointed out that ``on several occasions in the past, Pakistani authorities had declared that Kashmir is the core issue. To me that is nothing new. At the same time we have begun talks at several levels,’’ Mukherjee said.

He pointed out that the fourth round of composite dialogue had begun between India and Pakistan, that both sides were discussing further confidence-building measures in Jammu & Kashmir, and that for the fourth year the ceasefire was holding.

``I am not very perturbed about this particular expression,’’ Mukherjee said, in answer to a question, adding, ``In fact, I am a bit optimistic about the dialogue that we are having.’’

ENDS