Time for talks as PC heads to Pindi

Foreign secretary Rao may also soon hold meeting with her Pak counterpart

Ending the uncertainty over Chidambaram’s visit, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna even indicated here that the home minister might hold a separate bilateral meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik. The three-day SAARC home ministers’ meet will begin on  February 26.  

“He (Chidambaram) will get a chance to have very useful exchanges with his counterparts and other leaders in Pakistan,” said the external affairs minister. Krishna on Tuesday said that New Delhi had never shut the door for talks with Islamabad.

Chidambaram will be the first Indian minister to visit Pakistan since May 2008. The UPA government had suspended substantive bilateral dialogue in the wake of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, almost 15 months ago. 

Though Krishna maintained that the visit may not push forward the process of resuming the Indo-Pak composite dialogue on eight important identified issues, all indications emanating from the government suggested to the contrary.

“We can consider moving ahead (towards resumption of composite dialogue) only if he (Chidambaram) comes back satisfied that the Pakistani government is really addressing our concerns,” said a highly placed source. But these sources also gave very strong indications that he will return “satisfied.”

For, the sources said that Chidambaram’s visit to Rawalpindi might be followed by a meeting between Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir. The two foreign secretaries are the key officials put in charge of conducting and overseeing the composite dialogue. The sources though added that a meeting between the two foreign secretaries would not be for setting in motion the composite dialogue process all over again.

Islamabad has been pressing New Delhi for early resumption of the dialogue process. But India has been maintaining that the dialogue could be resumed only on evidence of Islamabad taking credible steps to book all Pakistani nationals involved in the 26/11 attacks.

Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani recently pushed hard for restarting the talks. He said India and Pakistan could not afford a war and the only way forward for them was to hold talks.

India and Pakistan had started the composite dialogue in February 2004 on eight identified issues such as Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek and terrorism. Some breakthroughs on a couple of these issues were expected almost four years ago and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had contemplated his first official visit to Pakistan in mid-2006 to announce the breakthrough.

However, neither a prime ministerial visit nor a breakthrough has materialised till date.  India is apparently not against some “measured contacts” with Pakistan and the sources even indicated New Delhi’s willingness to discuss with Islamabad issues like release of Indian and Pakistani fishermen detained in each other’s country as well as people-to-people contacts.

The Prime Minister had made an aborted bid last July to restart the dialogue process during his meeting with Gilani at the Egyptian city of Sharm-el-Sheikh. But the controversial Indo-Pak joint statement that was issued after Singh-Gilani meeting had drawn flak from the opposition as it allegedly de-linked the Composite Dialogue between the two countries and Islamabad’s actions against terrorists based in Pakistan.

According to sources, if the Congress leadership gives its go-ahead to the Government and Pakistan makes a few moves – even if symbolic – to curb anti-India terrorist outfits; Singh may go in for a high-profile meeting with Gilani on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Bhutanese capital Thimphu from April 28 to 29. Such a meeting might signal full resumption of the bilateral dialogue process.