India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reads a joint statement with Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf following a bilateral meeting at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana on Saturday. (Reuters)

NEW DELHI, 18 September 2006 — The path-breaking move by India and Pakistan to go for a joint mechanism to combat terror has evoked mixed reactions from experts here, some hailing it and others denouncing it as a dilution of New Delhi’s long-held position on terrorism flowing from across the border.

India and Pakistan ended a two-month hiatus in their fragile peace process by agreeing to resume talks, and a pact to fight terrorism together would be a challenge to implement, analysts said yesterday.

Although a joint statement after talks between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in the Cuban capital of Havana on Saturday was full of good intentions, there was little new in it, they said.

While noted strategic expert K. Subrahmanyam came out in full support of the decision announced by Manmohan and Musharraf, former Indian envoy in Islamabad G. Parthasarthy and terrorism expert Ajay Sahni were aghast.

“Once you have a joint mechanism, whatever evidence we have of terrorists operating from Pakistan targeting India we can give them to Islamabad. They have to now answer specific allegations and charges,” Subrahmanyam said.

“It’s a step forward,” Subrahmanyam, who heads the government’s task force on global strategic developments, said while hailing the resumption of the stalled peace process between India and Pakistan.

Manmohan and Musharraf met on the sidelines of the 14th Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana and also agreed to resume the foreign secretary-level talks, suspended after the July 11 terror attacks in Bombay that killed nearly 200 people.

The two leaders, meeting for the first time following the Bombay blasts, also agreed to put in place “an India-Pakistan anti-terrorism institutional mechanism to identify and implement anti-terrorism initiatives and investigations.”

India had implicitly held terrorists believed to operate from Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai killings. Pakistan denied any involvement with the carnage.

What is significant about this move, Subrahmanyam said, is that terrorism has moved from the realm of mutual public recriminations into the official dialogue process between India and Pakistan.

“Pakistan has accepted that terrorism is a problem between the two countries. It has accepted that terrorism exists on its own soil,” he said.

Parthasarathy, India’s former high commissioner to Islamabad, is not impressed with such arguments and said that such a mechanism — the first between them — fly in the face of evidence about Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism against India.

“It constitutes a dilution and a surrender of our position on terrorism. We are moving from a position of being a victim of Pakistan’s terrorism for the last 20 years to a position where we are endorsing Musharraf’s assertion that Pakistan is a victim of terrorism,” he said.

Parthasarathy is also not in favor of Manmohan going to Pakistan at a time when India “is vulnerable to constant terrorist attacks orchestrated from across the border.”

“By directing the foreign secretaries for an early settlement, he is converting the Siachen from a security issue to a political one,” he said, alluding to renewed moves to resolve the dispute over Siachen glacier — the world’s highest battlefield where thousands of soldiers have died on both sides.

Sahni was equally harsh. “This is the first time there will be such a mechanism between a victim of terrorism and a sponsor of terrorism. You can’t expect a criminal to police himself and cooperate in good faith,” Sahni said.

“In the guise of helping the US in the fight against terror, Pakistan has re-conquered half of Afghanistan through Taleban,” Sahni said.

Calling the anti-terror mechanism a “charade,” he underlined the larger Pakistani tactical compulsions and calculations that made it agree to such a step.

“Pakistan is under tremendous pressure internally to relocate troops from its border with India to centers of insurgencies like Balochistan and Waziristan,” Sahni said.

Kuldip Nayar, a former Indian envoy to Britain and a strong advocate of India-Pakistan peace, chose to see it as a “positive development” but is slightly skeptical about how such a joint mechanism can work.

“It looks like it’s an idea more on paper than in reality. But let’s not pre-judge it. Let’s give it a chance,” Nayar said.

“The decision reflects realization on both sides that they have only one option and that is to talk. It is not a breakthrough but there is no other option,” said Mutahir Ahmed, who teaches international relations at Karachi University.

Some said it would be tough for India to remain engaged if there is another big militant attack.

“If there is another incident of terrorism then the (peace) process may again derail or if there is no progress toward problem-solving then Pakistan may lose passion,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based international affairs analyst.

However, welcoming resumption of the peace talks, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) said yesterday in a statement, “The main outcome of the meeting between the Indian prime minister and the Pakistan president at Havana in the course of the NAM summit is the decision to resume composite dialogue between the two countries. This is a welcome and necessary step.”

While Kashmiri separatist leaders in Srinagar have welcomed resumption of the talks, they have asserted that these should be result-oriented.

“We welcome resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan. Talks should be result-oriented and carried forward seriously and sincerely,” Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Yasin Malik said.

In the opinion of hard-line faction of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, talks would lead to “nowhere unless New Delhi accepts Kashmir as a disputed issue.”

Describing “resumption of dialogue” as nothing “but a time consuming affair as India has not budged an inch from its stand on Kashmir so far,” Geelani said.

“We are not against talks but talks should be result-oriented and held in a congenial atmosphere.”