Next one week or two will be crucial in India-Pakistan bilateral relations. Some crucial decisions can be expected within this period, which will inevitably have a long-term impact on how the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors are going to engage with each other. And the chances are that there will be a forward movement in the tricky India-Pakistan ties.
There are reasons for this optimism. The onus of carrying forward the peace process currently lies in the Pakistani court and voices emanating from Islamabad suggest that Pakistan will not disappoint India.
From India’s perspective, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already invested huge political capital in his Pakistan policy. He has traveled an extra mile and is willing to travel yet another extra mile to ensure that his historic outreach to Pakistan does pay the required dividends.
What India needs immediately from Pakistan is some kind of a concrete deliverable, which acts like the much-needed oxygen for resuscitating the peace process that has floundered very badly since the post-Pathankot events.
The Modi government has already made a hugely unpopular and potentially politically suicidal move by allowing a Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to visit India. The JIT, which included an official from Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), also visited the Pathankot airbase, which was the target of a terror attack (Jan. 2-5). The Indians are expecting reciprocity, which means a reciprocal visit by an Indian investigation team to Pakistan and which was bluntly denied by Pakistani envoy in New Delhi, Abdul Basit. In a nutshell, reciprocity in Pathankot case investigation constitutes the bottom line and its denial may well be the proverbial last straw for the long-term India-Pakistan relations.
From Pakistan’s perspective, while Islamabad is aware of the Indian sensitivities and the domestic political compulsions of the Modi government the Nawaz Sharif dispensation is keeping New Delhi on tenterhooks.
Prime Minister Sharif’s adviser on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, has made some positive remarks and indicated that an Indian investigation team may after all be allowed to visit Pakistan. This is the reciprocity that the Modi government has been desperately awaiting.
On April 19, Aziz remarked that Pakistan is “cooperating closely” with India on the Pathankot investigations and said, “We are now pursuing those investigations fully.” However, he also mentioned the K word, which is so central to Pakistan’s India policy.
Aziz remarked thus: “For us, Kashmir issue remains a core issue, without which no dialogue can start. In the last few years, many different options have been explored in terms of finding a solution acceptable not just to India and Pakistan but also to the Kashmiri people. My own feeling is that once the dialogue begins and all options are put on the table, you can always find some common ground.”
The Indians are prepared for that. New Delhi has expressed its willingness time and again to discuss any issue with Pakistan, including the Kashmir issue.
So, that is indicative of broad convergence as far as the two sides are concerned.
Islamabad is currently in the driver’s seat, even more so because of solid diplomatic support by all-weather friend and ally China, which has recently taken Pakistan’s side before the United Nations Sanctions Committee and blocked an Indian move seeking UN action against Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit chief Masood Azhar.
But Pakistan would also be deeply aware that its current vantage position of being in the driver’s seat in India-Pakistan bilateral context comes with responsibility. That’s why Aziz, a seasoned diplomat, has chosen to take a much different and more mellowed line than Abdul Basit and has made some positive remarks.
Obviously, Pakistan isn’t unaware of the fact that it cannot possibly run a successful India policy with a maximalist position. Pakistan must be aware that in order to keep the dialogue process going it is absolutely essential to afford some elbowroom to the Indians. This explains Aziz making conciliatory remarks. With these remarks, Aziz is signaling to the Indians that they need to hold their horses. Considering the delicate stage at which India-Pakistan relations are currently poised it is absolutely essential for the leaders of the two sides to exercise utmost restraint and take the stalled peace process forward in the larger global interest.
Leaders of India and Pakistan must keep it in mind that the international community is eagerly looking forward to seeing the two sides smoking the peace pipe. Time is at a premium.
