India will not negotiate Kashmir in talks with Pakistan

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Despite hearing out Pakistan's position on Kashmir, India's stance on the border state, that it is an integral part of the Indian Republic, will remain unchanged, a senior ministry of external affairs officer said, hours before the Indo-Pakistani talks began on Friday, March 28.

The officer, who had served at the Indian mission in Islamabad and is now on the ministry's Pakistan desk, told Rediff On The NeT that India's strong views on Kashmir would be conveyed to the Pakistani delegation at the foreign secretary-level talks.

The Indian delegation is headed by Foreign Secretary Salman Haider and the Pakistani delegation is being led by Foreign Secretary Shamsad Ahmed.

"I don't think there will be any change in our position that Kashmir is an integral part of India. Of course, we will listen to what the Pakistani delegation has to say in the matter," the officer said on condition of anonymity.

Other MEA officers reiterated that the foreign secretaries meeting is expected to finalise the agenda for the proposed foreign ministers's conference between the countries in the next few weeks.

Foreign policy watchers here feel Pakistan's new-found willingness to come to the conference table and keep the dialogue going at different levels is largely due to Islamabad's domestic compulsions.

These officials point out that at one level Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief is being put under pressure by the International Monetary Fund and at another, related agencies are asking for a drastic cut in his country's defence expenditure.

For pruning the defence spending, Sharief would have to justify that there is really no need to maintain a standing army of nearly half a million soldiers. Hence the talks, Indian experts feel.

They point out that at another level, a long-standing conflict with India and no results on the Afghan front are resulting in a hefty drain on Pakistan.

The current trends in Islamabad indicated that Sharif wants to seize the initiative on the foreign and defence policy issues by himself.

The armed forces under General Jahangir Karamat are in no position to resist the Sharif's initiative as they have failed to deliver the goods.

It is also being stressed that a consensus is emerging in Pakistan that the continued support to militancy in Kashmir and the backing to the Taliban in Afghanistan has proved to be a disaster for Pakistan in the post-Cold War scenario.

Indian diplomats point out that at another level, the trade and business lobby is bringing enormous pressure on the elected representative in Pakistan to open up greater Indo-Pakistani trade at the earliest.

They said that according to an officially commissioned study by the previous government of Benazir Bhutto to assess the pros and cons of Indo-Pakistani trade strictly on economic merits and demerits, it would be economically advantageous to Pakistan in the medium and long term.

The Sharief government is keen to implement this report's recommendations with the necessary checks and balances, the officers said.

It is emphasised that reports emanating from Islamabad indicate that Sharief wants a clear demarcation between politics and economics.

The Pakistani apprehension seems to be the speed with which India is improving her relations with its neighbours and emerging as a major player in the emerging post-Cold War years. And if Pakistan is slow in responding to this development, it may get further isolated on crucial issues like Afghanistan, the officials claim.

From the Indian perspective, talking to Pakistan is part of the new foreign policy unilateralism conceived by the former Narasimha Rao government and being articulated by the United Front government.

In this new unilateralism in India's foreign policy with its neighbours, economics is at the top of the agenda. If it succeeds, nothing like it. If it fails, it should not be considered a major setback.