Pakistan Welcomes Outcome Of Indo-Pak Talks

The outcome of the just concluded foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan has been received well in Pakistan, with many seeing it as the beginning of a new era in bilateral ties.

Leader of the House in the Senate Raja Zafarul Huq described the outcome of the Islamabad talks as positive for normalisation of bilateral relations.

Akram Zaki, former foreign secretary and presently chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the Indian leadership had shown a positive attitude. One can hope now for progress on fundamental outstanding issues.

Niaz A Naik, another former foreign secretary and Pakistans former ambassador to New Delhi, said the tension between the two countries would reduce considerably due to the outcome of the Islamabad talks.

 

He lauded the Prime Ministers of the two countries for giving proper directions to their foreign secretaries. The Islamabad talks have proved that a new era has started in the 50 years history of the two countries.

Whether it is Kashmir, Siachen or other outstanding disputes in the India-Pakistan equation, Indias behaviour will demonstrate how sincere it is in taking the peace process forward. Until then, there is room for guarded optimism, The News in its editorial entitled Encouraging Start said.

Pakistan can draw satisfaction from the fact that the agenda includes the core issue of Kashmir. But it is too early to celebrate the onset of normalisation. The admittedly positive outcome of the talks ought also to be seen against the sobering lessons from the past attempts to break the logjam, which, after giving initial signs of hope, failed to produce peace.

Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed however expressed his reservations about the outcome of the parleys.

There should be no optimism in Pakistan unless India makes its position clear on Kashmir, he said.

Qazi Ahmed said the inclusion of Kashmir in the agenda does not carry much importance because it is already written in the Shimla Accord that the two countries will find a solution to this problem through talks.

Our stand is that unless the Kashmir dispute is resolved there should be no talks on other issues. Trade and normalisation of relations in other fields with India would mean that we have forgotten and wasted the sacrifices rendered by Kashmiris, he said.

An editorial titled An Edifice For Peace in The Nation said no sooner had the previous talks, like the just concluded dialogue, ended, than statements were issued by Indian leaders saying that Kashmir was an integral part of India on which Pakistan had no locus standi. Such statements killed the prospects of initiating even confidence building measures.

Having stuck in this blind alley for years, India seems to have relented a little. It still has its priority pegged to the confidence building measures but Kashmir figures prominently enough after that, the editorial said.

It said it went to the credit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that despite some provocative incidents from the Indian side (alleged deployment of Prithvi missiles and airspace violation) he kept his cool and did not allow his resolve to improve bilateral relations to wane.

Having said that one cannot but sound a note of caution which is that if India fails to show any accommodation of Kashmir in the meetings to follow, the entire edifice of hotlines and joint committees carefully built by the two sides will easily come tumbling down.

The News editorial said it is not the first time that India has agreed to discuss Kashmir with Pakistan. It was the focus of intensive dialogue in the 1960s during the famous exchange between then two foreign ministers Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Swaran Singh.

More recently, in November 1993, in a joint statement, India agreed to deal formally with Kashmir.

This statement referred to an agreement to discuss all aspects of the Jammu and Kashmir issue.

The editorial said when the foreign secretaries of the two countries met in January 1994, India backed out of its commitment, creating a three-year impasse which has only now been broken. Against this background, expectations will necessarily shape how the future dialogue actually proceeds on Kashmir.