Both agreed on script,rewrite hints at Pak Army hand

Otherwise,the modest outcome of the meeting had all been tied-up well in advance and the understanding was that the Pakistan Army was on board.

In the two months after the Thimphu meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistan counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani,officials on both sides worked hard to find common ground that eluded the Foreign Secretaries when they first met in February before the Thimphu conversation. The next meeting of Foreign Secretaries in June held out that promise.

The Pakistan side came to the table with a set of proposals that were eminently acceptable to India and were largely similar to what New Delhi had wanted in the first place. These included talks on CBMs like cross-LoC trade,exchange of prisoners,release of fishermen,enhancing people-to-people contact,talks between Commerce Secretaries as well as a dialogue on water issues. Pakistan,of course,wanted talks on Kashmir,Siachen and Sir Creek. India conveyed that those three issues ought to be left for later,but subsequently agreed to be a bit more flexible on discussing the Sir Creek issue.

While Pakistan did not want these issues to be sidestepped,it agreed on an announcement of talks on all the other CBMs during Krishna’s visit. To address Pakistan’s demand of resuming the composite dialogue,India agreed to have a review mechanism in place at the level of Foreign Ministers,just like it was in the composite dialogue,which would have tentatively met in November or December.

But on Thursday,the script went off-track. In fact,sources said,all seemed in order until the dinner on Wednesday night. There was some amount of discomfiture in the Pakistan camp over Krishna’s opening statement emphasising on the Headley revelations that had been cited by Home Secretary G K Pillai to highlight ISI’s role in 26/11. Yet,the joint statement was discussed and only some changes remained.

In fact,the joint statement was very much in discussion since June last week. Pakistan High Commissioner Shahid Malik and Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad Sharat Sabharwal were in close touch,holding regular meetings in respective Foreign Ministries,ironing out differences. It was at Malik’s repeated urging that India must look to adopt a more flexible approach on Sir Creek,did South Block agree to reconsider its stand only if Islamabad responded to New Delhi’s earlier proposals before the Mumbai attacks.

“The Pakistan side was very clear about our position and so,it was surprising that we could not even announce these CBMs which had been agreed,” said a source,adding that these proposals had been put forward by Pakistan. But very much like what happened in February during the FS talks,Pakistan went back to the old demand of including all items in the composite dialogue.

When India reaffirmed its position of a step-by-step approach,Pakistan said it would want India to commit that Kashmir and Siachen would be included in December when the review would take place. This,sources said,came as a response to India’s demand for a timeframe to the Mumbai trial. The hardening of the Pakistani position left Indian interlocutors perplexed as it went against the tenor of the conversation which the two sides had been having at the official levels in the past three weeks.

Still,when Krishna met the PM on return from Islamabad today,it was decided that engagement was the better option even now and that New Delhi must press ahead with its efforts.