Pak proposes dates for talks,India cautious

Khan,sources said,also gave out hope by assuring the Indian side that Sharif was a “man of action”,whenever the 26/11 question was raised during his visit. He,however,had no specifics to offer.

The other issue the Indian side emphasised was honouring the previous PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) government’s decision to accord India the MFN (Most Favoured Nation) status by the end of the year. On this,sources said,the new government in Pakistan is willing to go the distance but not under the same nomenclature since the term,when translated into Urdu,evokes negative sentiments in Pakistan.

It’s learnt that both Khan and before that Pakistan PM’s Advisor on Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz,who had met External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid at Brunei a few days prior to Khan’s visit,have conveyed that Islamabad may look at extending the same benefits but under a different name.

While New Delhi is not fixated with the nomenclature,officials here see progress on the MFN issue as an important marker of continuity between the Sharif government and its predecessor. The Indo-Pak peace process lost considerable time when the PPP government initially refused to acknowledge the progress made during the Musharraf era.

But as of now,Pakistan is keen to set up a major announcement in New York,where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is slated to meet Sharif on the margins of the UN General Assembly. In the run-up to that,sources said,Islamabad has proposed talks under the composite dialogue mechanism — Tulbul and Wullar Barrage in late August and Sir Creek talks in mid-September.

However,the Indian side is clear that while it’s prepared to hold discussions on any subject,it’s not prepared to resume the composite dialogue process. It may be recalled that this framework had begun to be called a comprehensive dialogue when it was resumed after the hiatus that followed the 26/11 attacks. This too was brought to an abrupt halt after the beheading of Indian soldiers on the Line of Control earlier this year.

On the other hand,New Delhi is willing take a positive look at the other Pakistan proposal,pushed forward by Khan during his visit,to hold meetings under the Indo-Pak joint commission headed by the two Foreign Ministers. This was revived last year after a seven-year gap and caters for talks under eight different heads,which are non-controversial like agriculture,tourism,environment,among others.

Pakistan has proposed that these talks take place between September and November,enabling a range of conversations over the next three to four months that could set up the agenda for a high-level political engagement by the end of this year or early 2014.

The key for India,however,remains progress on 26/11 and here matters have been on standstill in the last few months,especially after the case was shifted from Rawalpindi to the new anti-terror courts in Islamabad. No public prosecutor has been appointed after the killing of Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali in May,making it impossible for the case to move further.

Given the political proximity between Sharif’s PML-N and anti-India extremist outfits in Punjab,the Indian side is quite unsure what to expect. But the practical problem that keeps getting highlighted is what Pakistan’s former Interior Advisor Rehman Malik had once told former External Affairs Minister S M Krishna that not just prosecutors,but even judges are reluctant to hear this case because of constant death threats.

Until now,Sharif has made no proposal on this — one which India is hopeful will be made in some form before the two PMs meet in New York.