AGRA, 17 July — A high-stakes summit between India and Pakistan ended without a deal late last night, dashing earlier hopes of a possible breakthrough on troubled Kashmir as violence continued unabated leaving 53 people dead. Soon after President Pervez Musharraf sped off to the airport following a final meeting with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, an Indian official confirmed there had been no agreement.
An expected joint declaration never materialized, despite intense negotiations between foreign ministers after two days of summit talks between Vajpayee and Musharraf in the Taj Mahal town of Agra. Musharraf left Agra for Islamabad shortly after midnight following a farewell call to Vajpayee, which lasted more than one hour but produced no 11th-hour compromise.
“We are going back disappointed but there is always hope,” Pakistan government spokesman Anwar Mahmood told reporters. Mahmood also recalled that Vajpayee had accepted an invitation on Sunday to visit Pakistan later in the year. “We hope the process of dialogue will continue,” he said, while pointing the finger of blame at India for the breakdown in talks on the final declaration. “They did not agree to their own revised draft,” he said.
Indian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao issued a brief statement after Musharraf’s departure. “I am disappointed to inform all of you, that although the commencement of the process and the beginning of the journey has taken place, the destination of an agreed joint statement has not been reached,” Rao told reporters.
A senior Pakistan official, who declined to be identified, told reporters that the negotiations had become deadlocked over “the centrality” accorded to the decades-old Kashmir dispute in the declaration document.
In the afternoon there were high hopes that the summit might prove a bigger success than the Lahore one. Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar in a very clear term told Arab News that “There is likely to be a joint declaration.” Later all media picked up this report. The management of Jaypee Palace Hotel, venue of the summit, was also told to arrange for a small ceremony. And within no time a stage was set up for the signing ceremony of the joint declaration. And then started the long wait.
Earlier in the day, Musharraf had urged India to accept “the reality” that only progress on the Kashmir dispute could lead the South Asian powers away from more than 50 years of mutual hostility.
“It appears there is an invisible hand which is creating obstructions repeatedly,” Pakistan spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, told Zee News TV as he described the to-and-fro of a draft that both delegations haggled over for hours. “The joint declaration had been approved by the president and the prime minister. The two foreign ministers had also approved it. But when they came back from Indian officials, there were changes in it,” he said.
Diplomats from both sides had haggled for hours over the wording of the declaration, which was supposed to crown the first summit between the two countries in over two years. Hopes for at least a partial thaw in frosty relations had risen earlier after an extra round of talks appeared to have soothed a spat over Kashmir.
But officials from both countries — knowing every phrase and nuance of the document would be dissected in detail by their combined populations of nearly 1.4 billion people — could not agree the wording.
Musharraf appeared to seize the high ground earlier in the day, insisting the dispute over the Himalayan region was the “main issue” and chiding his hosts for trying to deflect the focus of talks. “I keep talking of Kashmir, you keep talking of cross-border terrorism ... we can’t even agree on a word!” he told Indian media editors at breakfast before the second day of talks began.
Hours earlier, Islamabad had punctured a mood of cordiality at the summit with an acerbic statement on an Indian minister’s failure to mention to reporters that the previous day’s talks had centered on Kashmir.
But Musharraf — a career soldier who turned politician when he took over in a bloodless coup in 1999 — blended a hard line on Kashmir and its “freedom struggle” with conciliatory language on the need to keep talking.
“I have fought the two wars ... I know what it is when one fights. So this is the issue,” he said.
“However, I will end by saying what I have learned in diplomacy ... never close the door shut, ever, in diplomacy.” Musharraf had said he would be happy if the summit led only to both sides agreeing to continue to meet and talk on Kashmir.
After the first meeting, India said Vajpayee had accepted an invitation to visit Islamabad, which was taken as a sign the two men intended to carry on with their search for peace.
After his polished performance at the breakfast conference — which was shown on TV networks in both countries — he went into his third round of one-to-one talks with Vajpayee in two days. After lunch they decided to hold an unscheduled fourth round to put together the “declaration”, apparently a document of greater significance than the “joint statement” originally on the cards.
In an apparent effort to answer Musharraf’s earlier public stand on Kashmir, India released a copy of the speech Vajpayee had made when the summit got under way on Sunday. “We cannot deny that there are vast differences between us on this. We are willing to address these differences and move forward,” he said.
“But for this, it is important to create a conducive atmosphere. The terrorism and violence being promoted in the state from across its borders do not help to create such an atmosphere. We will counter them resolutely.”
Musharraf’s visit was also held against a backdrop of continued violence in the territory. Authorities said nearly 80 people had been killed in the Indian-controlled side of the state since the eve of Musharraf’s visit. Nearly 53 people — including six Indian soldiers and 13 activists — have been killed in the last 24 hours alone.
Vajpayee and Musharraf had arrived in the Taj Mahal town of Agra on Sunday for the first Indo-Pakistan summit in more than two years. The first day of talks had been described as “frank, cordial and constructive” and hopes of a breakthrough had been boosted by Vajpayee’s acceptance of the invitation to visit Pakistan.
Then yesterday, Musharraf met with senior Indian newspaper editors. “Let us not remain under any illusion that the main issue confronting us is Kashmir,” he told the meeting just before his third round of talks with Vajpayee.
“I will carry on saying it whether anyone agrees or not, because this is what we have killed each other for,” Musharraf added.
Vajpayee, in his opening summit statement which was released to the press yesterday, said India believed that “a framework to address the differences between us on Jammu and Kashmir would have to include the issue of cross-border terrorism in its ambit.”
Musharraf had said he was willing to discuss all issues of bilateral concern — as long as there was progress on Kashmir.
