News Analysis: Question mark over proposed India-Pakistan talks after border ambush
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E-mail Xinhua, August 10, 2013
Days after New Delhi accused Islamabad of killing its five soldiers at the international border in Kashmir, a pertinent question has been doing the rounds in this country -- should the proposed meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif take place at the United Nations in New York next month?
While the Indian government has apparently expressed its intention to hold the talk, the opposition, mainly the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are against it and calling for cancellation of the meeting in the wake of the alleged ceasefire violations by the Pakistani Army at the Line of Control in Indian-controlled Kashmir Tuesday.
The killings of five Indian Army personnel at the international border also triggered massive outrage at the Indian parliament earlier this week, with senior BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha asking the government to abandon planned talks with Islamabad next month.
The BJP even forced Defense Minister A.K. Antony to retract his earlier statement in which he virtually gave a "clean chit" to Pakistan over the killings, saying the act was the handiwork of terrorists.
However, he made a U-turn Wednesday and blamed Pakistani Army for helping 15 to 16 intruders to carry out the ambush on an Indian Army post Tuesday.
But the government has so far refused to cancel the meeting between Singh and Sharif even as Pakistan denies any involvement in the killings of five Indian soldiers.
Political experts have slammed the Indian government for its " failure" to take a firm stand on Pakistan, saying the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) lacks a "courageous" determination and is "unable to give a strict response" to Islamabad.
"The U.S. has cancelled talks between American President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow giving asylum to CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Here, India has lost five of its soldiers, and see the response from the government. Till now, it is in a dilemma over whether to cancel the talks or not," said Delhi-based political analyst Ajay Singh.
Bemused by the government's stance over the talks, even a group of former senior military officials and diplomats have urged it to cancel the proposed talks between the Prime Ministers of two countries.
"At a time when Pakistan is day in and day out using terrorism against us, it would be ill-advised for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to meet with Nawaz Sharif as it would signal that relations between the two countries are in a business-as-usual mode," said the officials who included former Indian Army chief General N.C. Vij and former diplomat G. Parthasarathy.
"We, therefore, strongly recommend that we do not rush into a dialogue with Pakistan, and the proposed meeting between the Prime Ministers of the two countries be cancelled," they added.
Some political experts believe that India has always been soft while dealing with Pakistan which has apparently encouraged the latter to "bully" this country and indulged in terror acts.
"The Pakistani establishment was behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, in which over 170 people were killed by 10 Pakistani militants. India for sometime suspended the peace talks with Pakistan, but again some years later, it began holding dialogue with that state. This time also India is reluctant to cancel the proposed meeting between Singh and Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly," said expert S.K. Gupta.
A section of the Indian media has also called up on the government to cancel the proposed meeting in the wake of the killings of five soldiers.
The killings of five soldiers "needs to be condemned in the harshest terms" and the Indian Army must "beef up its preparedness and strengthen its tactics" at the border, according to The Times of India, the country's largest selling English newspaper.
India and Pakistan often accuse each other of ceasefire violations. Both countries have fought at least three major wars in the past 60 years over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Time will only tell whether India will take a strong stance and cancel the proposed meeting or go ahead with the talks in its decades-long bid to engage the neighbouring country's civilian government to find a peaceful solution to Kashmir. Endi
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