EDITORIAL (June 13 2009): At long last the United States seems to have succeeded in convincing New Delhi that the latter's unrelenting hostility towards Pakistan tends to negatively impact Islamabad's war on terror.
Consequently, of late there has been a flicker of signals from across the border that the Manmohan Singh government would like to resume the composite dialogue but subject to certain conditions, the foremost being Islamabad's promise to dismantle the alleged architecture that breeds international terrorism.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has famously said that India would go more than half the way to restart the dialogue, a move that has been welcomed by his Pakistani counterpart, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
If New Delhi needs any proof of Pakistan's anti-terrorism commitment it is there, the Americans must have told New Delhi pointing in the direction of Malakand division. But the Americans have also conveyed Pakistan's lingering concerns about India's subversive role in bankrolling insurgency in Pakistan's border regions through its consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar.
Unnamed sources have been quoted by the Indian media as saying that William Burns, the US Under-secretary of State for Political Affairs who was in New Delhi early this week, had delivered a letter from President Obama to Prime Minister Singh, and asked India to "close or prune" its consulate in Jalalabad following Pakistan's allegation that it was "creating trouble" in NWFP and Balochistan.
But what Burns said on record was no less candid: "It remains our view that a resolution of that (Kashmir) issue has to take into account wishes of the Kashmiri people", he told a news conference in New Delhi. That is looking at the picture in its totality that was so far overlooked by Washington and rejected by New Delhi.
So far the United States had had disregarded Pakistan's standpoint that it couldn't commit itself to fighting militancy in the north-west as long as India kept raising the ante of its hostility on the eastern border. India has moved more than half of its strike cores on the border as show of force following the Mumbai carnage last year. That mindset appears to be changing, as the Obama administration seems to have concluded that India is as much part of the problem as its claim to be its solution, if not more.
May be the US administration analysed that Mumbai incident was basically a response to India's repressive rule in the Occupied Kashmir. And the United States must have also come across the evidence - on its own - confirming that India, in cahoots with the Afghan government, is deeply involved in sustaining militancy in Pakistan's north-western regions and Balochistan.
The Indian establishment was quite satisfied with the quality of co-operation Pakistani authorities had provided in investigating the Mumbai incident but it couldn't say 'thank-you' because of the impending parliamentary elections. Now that Congress Party is back in the saddle its leadership should show courage to resume the composite dialogue which as a forum has the requisite potential and diplomatic credibility to deliver.
Considering the progress was made in terms of fixing up quite a few confidence-building measures (CBMs) - although most of Pakistanis think ex-president General Pervez Musharraf had given more than taken from New Delhi - its resumption would help strengthen anti-terrorism co-operation. The sad truth is that India has never been able to secure trust and confidence its neighbours, a reality which tends to promote, albeit vicariously, terrorism by the separatist forces.
The ball is squarely in India's court and the onus to improve climate of mutual trust and co-operation lies with New Delhi. US Secretary of State Clinton's visit to this region next month and expected "chance" Zaradri-Singh conclave in the sidelines of the upcoming Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit in Russia, we believe, can greatly help in that respect.
