Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s UN address on Wednesday in which he made a mention to Kashmir as the core issue and his reference to implementing the Security Council resolution, has not gone down too well with the India’s Foreign office mandarins. The meeting that followed the General’s speech between the two sides was described as ‘tense’ after which a short Joint Statement was read out by the Pakistani President. Analysts have been quick to put a question mark on the talks with even hard-line militants dismissing the peace process as a ‘staged’ drama.
One senior Pakistani official who is also the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee admitted to one of the journalist from India that the momentum of the talks had slowed down and made references to complexities cropping up. It is anybody’s guess that talks have now entered a new stage where more substantive issues could be on the table.
One of the demands from Islamabad is to ask India to cut down troops deployed in the State of Jammu & Kashmir as part of the confidence building measures. But New Delhi is unlikely to take any immediate decision on this front given that a military assessment on level of cross-border infiltration must be first ascertained.
Manmohan Singh in his UN speech telling world leaders that India would never compromise with terrorists in Kashmir also goes to show New Delhi’s strong stand as far as cross-border infiltration is concerned. Obviously that both Islamabad and New Delhi do not agree on this issue was evident when Musharaff after Singh’s speech said that the Indian accusation is that there is cross-border terrorism, which they call freedom struggle.
It is no surprise that any kind of definition on the Kashmir issue becomes too complicated and unnecessarily creates misunderstanding and possibly a deadlock on Kashmir’s territorial status looms large. The big question is whether both sides can overcome their long held position that exists. If Kashmir is an article of faith for Pakistan, it is a settled issue—a closed book as far as India is concerned. For Pakistan, it is the unfinished agenda of partition and the need to validate the two nation theory. On the territorial issue India is firm that Kashmir is legally and constitutionally an integral part of India. Pakistan on its part maintains that Kashmir is disputed territory and that only a plebiscite held by the UN can determine its status. Gen Musharaff’s latest assertion at the UN summit said it all.
In the present circumstance, unless both countries are amenable to a change in their current Kashmir thinking, a solution acceptable to Islamabad and New Delhi appears highly unlikely. Just as no government in India can concede Kashmir to Pakistan, no government in Islamabad can accept a solution that dilutes its long held demand. The only practicable solution that both sides can give a thought to is on the possibility of converting the Line of Control into an international border and maintaining the present status quo on the territorial front.
