ISLAMABAD, May 16: Amid signals from New Delhi and Islamabad that the nascent peace process between the two countries will continue despite the change of government in India
, there are hints of a possible revision in the timetable of the current roadmap for a composite dialogue.
There has been no official word on this but diplomatic sources do not rule out this possibility given that the victorious Congress party has yet to form a government. "There can be a lag in the momentum of the peace process in such a situation which is not deliberate," the sources said.
Officials here say there are no clear indications yet if the Congress government will pursue the current peace process at the same pace or if it will revise the timetable and chalk out a new roadmap for a composite dialogue with Pakistan.
A substantive change in the current roadmap is unlikely but it could change in terms of priorities, sources maintain. The roadmap was worked out between the foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India on Feb 18 in pursuance of the ground-breaking Jan 6 Joint Press Statement issued after the Muharraf-Vajpayee meeting here.
According to the agreed calendar, bilateral talks on 'illicit drugs and smuggling' and secretary-level talks on peace and security as well as Jammu and Kashmir are to be held in June.
Technical-level talks on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service slated for March 29 have been postponed twice on the request of the Indian government. The first political-level dialogue will take place in August between the two foreign ministers.
Some analysts believe that the Congress government may devise a new peace roadmap to put its party's tag on it. However, the focus right now is on the expert-level talks on nuclear CBMs scheduled for May 25-26.
The political change of guard in India has raised doubts in some quarters about whether New Delhi will go ahead with the planned talks. Not because of a change of heart but due to more pressing demands at home that may call for immediate attention.
A view in the diplomatic circles is that since these talks have to be conducted at the bureaucratic level and are on a non- controversial issue they may not be deferred.
More so because the Congress party, that has returned to power after eight years, would not want to send the wrong signal to the international community that has widely welcomed the resumption of peace talks.
"Congress is likely to press ahead with the talks to vindicate its claims that it has historically initiated and sustained peace dialogue with Pakistan," remarked one official.
Notably the first, and so far the only, nuclear-related agreement between Pakistan and India was inked in December 1988 under the governments of President Gen Ziaul Haq and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose spouse Sonia Gandhi is now set to form the new government in India.
The bilateral agreement on 'Prohibition of attack against nuclear installations and facilities' was signed by the two foreign secretaries on Dec 31, 1988. The talks on nuclear CBMs later this month will be the first interaction on the issue between experts of both countries after 1999.
The last time a decision on nuclear CBMs was made was during Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to Lahore in February 1999. At that time the two countries signed an MoU covering both nuclear and missile regimes including advanced notification of ballistic missile testing.
The MoU said the two sides would engage in bilateral consultations on security concepts and nuclear doctrine with a view to developing measures for confidence building in the nuclear and conventional fields. The two sides undertook to provide each other with advance notification in ballistic missile and in flight tests.
