Making A Difference

Quills And Spills

The joint statement was impromptu work by the two PMs

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Quills And Spills
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Indian diplomats take pride in their drafting skills, which have often been praised by their foreign counterparts. But last week’s Indo-Pak joint statement at Sharm el-Sheikh has no claimants to ownership in the Indian foreign policy establishment. Reason: the joint statement, many say, was both “badly worded” and myopic.

There are two contentious aspects to that statement of July 16, issued after the meeting between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the NAM conference in Sharm el-Sheikh. One, it delinks action on terror from the resumption of the Indo-Pak composite dialogue; two, it includes Pakistani worries about threats it faces in Balochistan. Many in South Block are now trying to pass off the document as a “Pakistani draft” the two prime ministers agreed to accept.

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Sources say the original Indian draft neither delinked action on terror from the resumption of the composite dialogue nor did it mention Balochistan. This draft, sources say, was shown to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, who was handling the foreign ministry a few months ago, before the Sharm el-Sheikh encounter.

Apparently, Pranab wasn’t in favour of a joint statement: he reasoned that this shouldn’t be done as the two prime ministers were only talking on the sidelines of the NAM conference and weren’t engaged in a structured meeting. He was for issuing an innocuous statement that reiterated India’s stance that no dialogue with Pakistan was possible till it showed progress on taking action against the perpetrators of Mumbai 26/11 and took verifiable steps to dismantle the terror apparatus on its soil.

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Indian officials who were at the NAM conference say foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon arrived in Egypt two days ahead of the Manmohan-Gilani meeting and held at least three meetings with his Pakistani counterpart, Salman Bashir. The two spent long hours hammering out a common document, but differences persisted even on July 16, the day Manmohan and Gilani met one-to-one. Sources said, talks over, delegation members were all called and informed of the agreement reached by the two PMs. It is learnt that Gilani dictated most of the points; Manmohan added a few. Menon and Bashir were then told to “clean up the text” and turn it into a joint statement.

More than the delinking of terror from the dialogue, it’s the inclusion of Balochistan that has many in India crying foul. The fear is that Pakistan will now be able to harp on India’s alleged role in fanning discontent in Balochistan. There are those who counter that, saying the fear of drawing attention to the abysmal poverty and human rights violations in Balochistan would dissuade Pakistan from raising these issues in international fora. But it’s a mystery why Manmohan agreed to include Balochistan in the joint statement.

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