Islamabad, Jan 17
With a packed agenda lined up for the next two months, the
India-Pakistan dialogue process is poised to get a further stimulus
following External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's two-day visit
here and a leap forward on some central issues could perhaps set the
stage for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's much-awaited trip to
Pakistan.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri visits New Delhi
next month for the fifth meeting of the India-Pakistan Joint
Commission, followed by the first formal meeting in March of the
recently constituted joint anti-terror mechanism and also the
commencement of the fourth round of the composite dialogue.
Foreign ministry officials point out that several agreements would
be finalized during Kasuri's trip including the speedy return of
inadvertent line crossers, the prevention of incidents at sea,
liberalising the visa regime and drawing up procedures for nuclear
risk reduction.
Hydrographers and surveyors from Pakistan and India, who have
already begun the joint survey of the disputed Sir Creek marshland,
are expected to complete their assessment by the end of February.
This time around, officials from both sides are confident of
chalking out a maritime boundary inwards on the basis of
equidistance of the narrow strip of marshland separating Sindh in
Pakistan and Gujarat in India.
In the midst of this gabfest, work would also have been started by
the committee of the senior judiciary to visit jails in the two
countries for quick release of prisoners who have completed their
prison terms. Also on the anvil is a trip by a team of
archaeologists from Pakistan's Punjab province that will visit
various temples in India to get ideas for restoring the Katasraj
temple, near Lahore.
"This is truly a crowded engagement but a good opportunity to build
on the positives that have accrued in the last couple of years," a
senior Indian diplomat here told IANS.
In fact soon after Mukherjee's visit, Pakistan Prime Minister
Shaukat Aziz pointed out in an interview that the atmospherics
between the two countries had improved considerably in the last
three years and even the trust gap had been bridged to an extent.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said more or less the
same thing after
the meeting of the two foreign ministers and that the next step
forward was to lay out a course for the immediate future.
While it may be premature to say that an agreement could be reached
on the Siachen dispute, Manmohan Singh Monday indicated there were
"hopeful features in the present dialogue" to fast-track a
settlement.
"The two sides are among other things holding negotiations on
authentication of the ground position (in Siachen). There are
hopeful features in the present dialogue," Singh said while
returning from Cebu, Philippines, where he attended the East Asia
summit. "It is my effort to sustain the momentum."
It may still be a long way before Singh's vision of regional
integration where one can have "breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in
Lahore and dinner in Kabul" takes place, but of immediate
significance are the inputs required for such an output - confidence
building, normalisation and, most importantly, conflict resolution.
Over the last year and, especially during Mukherjee's visit, warm
rhetoric has already melted some ice in the years of frosty
relations between both countries. The idea now, optimists on both
sides agree, is to work towards the permanent thaw.
(Murali Krishnan can be reached at m.krish@ians.in)
(c) Boloji.com :
1999–2008 : All
Rights Reserved Boloji.com is owned and managed by Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer
No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
