No Pak talk, says PM before Obama date

Ahead of his first meeting with US president Barack Obama, prime minister Manmohan Singh made it clear that India was in no mood to give in to any international pressure to re-start the composite dialogue with Pakistan.

Manmohan Singh will be meeting Obama in London where both are attending the G20 summit called by British prime minister Gordon Brown. Realising that Obama wants India and Pakistan to pick up the threads of the dialogue process, Singh ruled out talks unless there was a sincere attempt by Pakistan to deliver on its promises.

“They have to show visible results with regard to investigation in the 26/11 event… that the government of Pakistan is doing everything possible to bring culprits to book,” Singh said in the capital before leaving for London on Tuesday. He was fielding questions on India’s response to president Asif Ali Zardari’s emphasis on early resumption of dialogue.

While outlining the new US Af-Pak strategy last Friday, Obama had said that Washington would engage in “constructive diplomacy” to bring down tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. It is evident that New Delhi will come under increasing pressure to repair ties with Islamabad. But this is certainly no time for Singh to make overtures. With elections due next month, talking to Pakistan without Islamabad showing credible evidence of addressing India’s concerns  would give the BJP a talking point.

It would also undo all the good that came through the government’s unprecedented international campaign to put pressure on Pakistan to admit that the terror attack was planned on its soil and that all the terrorists were its nationals.