India cautious after Pakistan invites Sushma to conclave

Feels Islamabad may raise Kashmir issue

A cautious New Delhi is yet to take a call on an invitation that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj received from Pakistan government to attend a multilateral conclave on Afghanistan in Islamabad next month.

Sushma is understood to have received the invitation from Sartaj Aziz, Foreign Affairs and National Security Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister M Nawaz Sharif, to attend the Heart of Asia meeting of Istanbul Ministerial Process on Afghanistan scheduled to be held in Islamabad on December 7 and 8.

MoS could attend
New Delhi is yet to decide whether Sushma herself would travel to Islamabad or Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh would attend the conference.

While Sushma has been invited to a multilateral conclave, officials in New Delhi pointed out that it would not be in keeping with courtesy and diplomatic protocol if she travelled to Islamabad and returned without having a bilateral meeting with Aziz.

New Delhi, however, is cautious about a Sushma-Aziz meeting in Islamabad, as it has so far been maintaining that it would stick to the roadmap of engagement Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart had agreed upon at Ufa in Russia on July 10. Modi and Sharif had agreed at Ufa that their national security advisors would meet in New Delhi to discuss all issues related to terrorism.

Aziz was expected to meet Modi’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in New Delhi on August 24. But the meeting was called off after India asked Pakistan to drop its insistence on including the issue of Kashmir in the agenda of talks between the two NSAs and on consulting the Hurriyat Conference and other separatist organisations of Kashmir before the parleys.

Sources told Deccan Herald that New Delhi had reservations to discuss resumption of the stalled dialogue with Islamabad on Kashmir and other outstanding issues, without having a “credible and effective” outcome from the NSAs’ parleys on the issue of anti-India terrorism emanating from Pakistan and territories under its control.

If Sushma holds a bilateral meeting with Aziz on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference in Islamabad, Pakistan is likely to use the opportunity to raise the issue of Kashmir and seek restart of dialogue.

Redeeming talks
To return to the roadmap of engagement agreed upon at Ufa, India proposed a meeting between Doval and Aziz on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York in the last week of September. Pakistan, however, insisted that it would agree to have talks between the two NSAs only if another meeting was also arranged between Aziz and Sushma to discuss resumption of dialogue on all other outstanding issues, including Kashmir. The move was finally aborted.

A section within the government in New Delhi, however, is understood to be of the view that a brief bilateral meeting between Sushma and Aziz in Islamabad may help end the impasse and help create a situation where India and Pakistan could explore possibilities of restarting dialogue.