The phrases and code-words of India-Pakistan dialogue had become so familiar that departures in the joint statement out of Sharm El-Sheikh have instantly invited clarifications. A reading of the text of the joint statement issued after Thursday’s meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yusuf Raza Gilani, has become tied to Dr Singh’s remarks at a press conference later in the day. The composite dialogue with Pakistan, he said, cannot begin until and unless the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks are brought to justice. Flagging the second key point in the statement, he added that India has nothing to be afraid about events in Balochistan. But, given the unanticipated reference to debracketing of action on terrorism and the dialogue process and to “threats in Balochistan”, there will have to be more hardsell domestically of the contents of the joint statement.

Textualism in diplomacy — especially one as keenly based on gesture and semantics as India-Pakistan’s — is always fraught with the danger of over-reading. New Delhi’s position on the reference to not “bracketing” action on terrorism and the composite dialogue is, as the prime minister stated, that Pakistan cannot demand movement in the dialogue process for action on India’s concerns on terrorism. Islamabad, sceptics may say, could spin it just the other way. But the reality is this. Since the November 26 attack in Mumbai, there has been impatience in India on movement on its demands on actions against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack. There has, too, been no movement on the low-hanging fruit in the composite dialogue, like Sir Creek and visas. There has been in this period considerable pressure by the US on the two countries to resume the dialogue process, pressure that the two leaderships feel they have a stake in addressing. The joint statement, evidently hard-fought word for word, reflects an acknowledgement that they have to, with optics, address issues on which little substantive has been achieved. Indeed, resumption of India-Pakistan engagement is a valuable achievement. This is, it must be clear, not an Islamabad (January 2004) moment. There is no clinching breakthrough. But it is not an Agra moment either. The principals still have much to do to get the optics right; the silences in the joint statement are yet to be filled. The Egypt meet, therefore, will be judged in great measure on what is delivered by Pakistan on the Mumbai accused.

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