Playing hard ball

After a day of hurling the ball back and forth, the talks between the National Security Advisors of Pakistan and India are off. The Pakistan Foreign Office, in response to a statement by the Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in which she said Pakistan’s security advisor Sartaj Aziz should not meet Kashmiri Hurriyat leaders on his visit to New Delhi and talks should focus solely on terrorism, stated Saturday night that it would not accept dialogue with such pre-conditions. Essentially, India had made sure it turned down the talks with the statement issued by Swaraj after days of uncertainty over the dialogue scheduled for the 23rd and 24th of this month. The problems that broke out amid heightening unrest between the two nations as skirmishes along the Line of Control claimed more and more lives came to a head when Swaraj issued her hard-line statement. The word meant the visit by Sartaj Aziz to New Delhi to meet his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval was for all intents and purposes cancelled. Pakistan’s Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has said that India made a clear U-turn on its previous position while there was no change in Pakistan’s stance. The FO, in its statement, has also said terrorism was always on the agenda and there was every intention to discuss it, but this could not be the sole topic for talks. In her remarks, Sushma Swaraj stated that the conditions did indeed exist. In essence, India has pulled out of the talks, mimicking what it did a few months ago when it also withdrew at the last minute from foreign secretary level talks.
Pakistan’s argument that it had been agreed at the meeting at Ufa between the prime ministers of both countries that modalities for discussing Kashmir and other outstanding problems would be on the agenda for talks between the NSAs were dismissed by Swaraj. India, it appears is not willing to give an inch or do anything to solve what is an entrenched problem and has also led to the cross-border firing that has attracted concern from world leaders including the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. So, we have here a bigger problem than before. The hard-line approach taken by India makes it even clearer than it was before where things stand. The problems of terrorism and the cross-border skirmishes can be solved only through dialogue. It is difficult to understand precisely what India intends to do about them if it is not willing to talk to its neighbour. Hurling blame one way and the other will solve nothing. The arrest of a key Kashmiri Hurriyat leader Shabir Shah as he arrived in New Delhi to meet Aziz and the arrest on Saturday of senior Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani also sends out the same message. The Indian media has echoed this tone, setting up a situation for growing acrimony. The challenge for leaders is how to break through the barriers of hostility. They appear to be growing higher and higher with each passing week. It is unfortunate that the precise nature of discussions at Ufa were not more transparent and more carefully spelled out before the public. This complicates matters. But essentially it all boils down to attitude. India at present is not willing to abandon its increasingly anti-Pakistan position and this will make it harder than ever before to move towards the dialogue the two countries and the region so urgently need. The attempts to do so must however continue given that there is really no other choice for the two nations and their people.