Pak insult to SM Krishna may have been a ploy to avoid discussing Headley dossier and ISI role in 26/11.
After two days of sharp exchanges following foreign minister level talks, India and Pakistan on Saturday played down their differences, saying the talks to normalise ties will continue.
India’s foreign secretary Nirupama Rao stressed that the talks had not collapsed and the dialogue process must go on. But she also said that Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and his Indian counterpart SM Krishna will not have a meeting on the sidelines of a donors’ conference in Doha on July 20, which both are attending.
Rao said there were a number of issues on which both countries were in agreement. She added, however, that the tenor of Qureshi’s remarks could have been better. “Pakistan came to the talks with slightly different expectations. They wanted the entire spectrum discussed. We are not against resumption of dialogue, but it has to be in a graduated way,” Rao said, adding that introspection was needed by Pakistan on why terror had been used against India.
On Friday, Qureshi had said Krishna was not ready to discuss specifics related to bilateral issues, and added that Islamabad was in no hurry to engage New Delhi again unless the dialogue was result-oriented.
But Pakistan struck a conciliatory note on Saturday. “Pakistan wants the continuation of dialogue with India. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assured me that all issues will be discussed,” Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said in Lahore, while describing his Indian counterpart as an “honourable man”. After this, Qureshi too made a volte-face. “We are very serious about normalising our relations with India. The decision to continue the talks is a good augury,” he said.
There is a view in the Indian diplomatic community that Pakistan found itself in a tight spot after the Indian home minister P Chidambaram presented a dossier on David Coleman Headley to his Pakistan counterpart Rehman Malik on the sidelines of the SAARC summit last month. It became difficult for Pakistan to move the dialogue forward without acting on the Headley evidence. This probably influenced the Pakistan army and the influential Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to try and scuttle the dialogue process. This may explain the negative stance adopted by Qureshi.
In New Delhi, Rao made it clear that India continues to have concerns about the role of state actors — an allusion to the ISI — in terrorism.
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