Tough India insists Pak should walk the talk on ending terror

NEW YORK: The chasm between India and Pakistan is so wide at this point that when the foreign secretaries of the two countries met at the Roosevelt Hotel on Saturday ahead of a ministerial engagement the two delegations did not even shake hands -- because, perhaps symbolically, the table they sat across was too wide for gladhandling.

So when Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi met his Indian counterpart S.M.Krishna at the New York Palace Hotel on Sunday morning, he pumped his hand vigorously, telling photographers to note the firm handshake. But whether there was a meeting of minds and hearts was another matter altogether.

Although there were the usual bromides about the meeting being cordial, constructive etc, it was notable for the tough and stony Indian insistence that there would be no meaningful dialogue of any quality unless Pakistan acted to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage to justice. ( Watch Video )

Qureshi assured Krishna that there would be a speedy trial and the reason it was taking time was that his government wanted to establish a watertight case. But the bottomline from the Indian side was they will wait to see Pakistan walk the talk on terrorism, including dismantling the infrastructure of terror, before there can be any normalcy in relationship.

Ahead of the meeting, Pakistan tried to generate some momentum in the ties by suggesting a back channel dialogue and even threw up a name for the job – former ambassador Riaz Mohammed Khan -- but Krishna curtly shot it down, saying, "Where is the need for a back channel dialogue when the front channel is open?"

But that front channel dialogue, the minister made it clear repeatedly, ain’t going nowhere if Pakistan does not show genuine intent and resolve in ending its policy of state terrorism against India. "The question is of the quality of the dialogue and how meaningful it is," Krishna said about the continuing exchanges, which sometimes appears to send a mixed signal.

In fact, in a clear expression that Pakistan had work to do beyond the 26/11 case, Krishna said New Delhi believed that there were forces beyond the seven or eight planners of the Mumbai carnage which Islamabad needed to address, and he had "flagged" this for minister Qureshi.

Krishna also crispy tossed out the Sharm-el-Sheikh bogey from the dialogue (in which Pakistan tried to implicate India for alleged nefarious role in Balochistan), saying the issue of India’s role in Balochistan did not even figure in the talks. To a question of India’s role in Afghanistan, the minister said India was there at the invitation of the Afghanistan government and the people and it had no agenda other than helping Afghanistan.

As the meeting began, there were warm handshakes and bright smiles, but the sentiment was anything but sunny; it was more in keeping with the weather in Big Apple – bleak, damp, and dreary. The meeting went on for nearly two hours, and the fact that there was no joint statement, let alone a joint appearance, suggested the two sides were still at odds, despite Pakistan’s promise of action.

The stage for the rather weary engagement whose agenda was pre-determined and restricted by India -- to seek a progress report on the case against Mumbai carnage mastermind Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, and Islamabad’s larger commitment to dismantle its terror infrastructure – was set by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement that Pakistan should give up using terrorism as state policy. Pakistan resentfully protested the PM’s remark, and in response, offered the usual stony excuses about India not having given sufficient evidence, and pious palliatives having to follow the law of its land to build a strong case etc.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Tough-India-insists-Pak-should-walk-the-talk-on-ending-terror/articleshow/5063429.cms