Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries Agree to Disagree in Thimpu

This is the editorial I wrote for Sakaal Times, Pune, which was published today (Feb 8, 2011)

The Sunday meeting of Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries in Thimpu has thrown up mixed results, a cocktail of good and bad news. The bad news is that Nirupama Rao and Salman Bashir failed to fix a firm date of an India visit by Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, though the understanding between the two countries is that Qureshi will be visiting India by the end of the first quarter of 2011 and the foreign secretary-level dialogue in Thimpu provided a good opportunity for the two sides to agree on the innocuous issue of specific dates of Qureshi’s India visit. Rao and Bashir could not do the needful, though the issue came up for discussion during their 90-minute bilateral meeting. It is indicative of fundamental differences between the two sides on key issues. The matter will continue to be discussed through the usual diplomatic channels and Qureshi’s visit to India by March this year can still not be ruled out. Another bad news is that the two foreign secretaries were expected to firm up a broad agenda of talks on less contentious issues like trade and Sir Creek to keep a limited dialogue going. They were also expected to agree to a dialogue on terror-related issues at the home secretaries’ level and separate meetings of secretaries of commerce, culture and water resources.

The good news is that the two foreign secretaries conducted themselves very maturely and exhibited a rare restraint while briefing the press separately in Thimpu. An encouraging diplomatic symbolism that flowed from the Rao-Bashir meeting is that they avoided trading barbs on contentious issues and almost spoke in unison on all issues. Rao showed this restraint on questions of Pakistan’s alleged sins of omission and commission on 26/11 investigations and further action by Pakistani officials. For his part, Bashir also refused to haul India over coals on the issue of February 17, 2007 blast in Pakistan-bound Samjhauta Express near Panipat (India) in which 68 people, including 42 Pakistanis, were killed. This is a good sign and augurs well for normalization of ties between the two nuclear armed neighbours who have fought three direct wars and one indirect war (Kargil, 1999) since 1947. The two sides need to stay engaged and avoid negotiating in public glare through the media. The failed Agra summit between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf was a good example of how India and Pakistan should not conduct their bilateral relations.