No easy way to peace

ISLAMABAD: Peace dividends won't come easy. Complicated matters like Jammu and Kashmir, which involve men and deadly machines in one of the world's most hostile terrains, have no easy solutions.

While the repeated pledge from the new Congress-led government in India is that it would "resolutely" take forward the peace process with Pakistan, signals on the Kashmir issue remain fixed and underline all official and unofficial statements.

The main thrust of policy and opinion-makers belonging to both the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP remains that the LoC must be converted into an international border. Buoyed by similar positions taken by the US and the UK, a majority of Indians continue to argue that the disputed territory is an integral part of India.

While there is recognition in Pakistani foreign-policy circles that the Indian position on Kashmir remains unchanged, there is a general view that Islamabad should let the peace process continue.

It does not want to be seen as sullying the process that has been widely advocated and welcomed by the international community and won Pakistan tremendous goodwill. While Pakistan does not want to rock the boat, there is concern in some quarters that it may sink the boat if India is let off the hook on the core issue of Kashmir.

The peace overtures initiated by the two sides last year that gained momentum after the Jan 6 joint press statement following the Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting have yielded dividends for Pakistan and India.

These have included significant diplomatic advantages to Pakistan, which has played on the forward foot with India and earned confidence. The dividends, symbolic as well as tangible, are manifest in the domestic, regional and international arenas. As a consequence of the recent confidence-building measures, Pakistan has gained substantively on all three fronts.

For one peace has spared Pakistan tension on its eastern borders while it is engaged in a major anti-terror operation on its western frontier involving more than 70,000 Pakistani troops.

Also, it has relatively muffled the Indian rhetoric of cross-border terrorism against Pakistan that was invariably used by major Western powers as a pressure tool against Pakistan. While some of the pressure remains, it has been vastly reduced.

Moreover, Pakistan's positive engagement in the post-January 6 phase prevented India from capitalizing on an issue as grave as proliferation and transfer of unclear technology by Dr A. Q Khan.

On the diplomatic front, there have been good tidings for Pakistan in the last couple of months. Apart from winning the status of a Major Non-Nato Ally (MNNA) from the US administration, the Third Generation trade agreement between Pakistan and the European Union got the seal of approval, Pakistan's request for membership of the key regional security grouping, Asean Regional Forum (ARF), was cleared, and it was re-admitted into the Commonwealth fold. Undoubtedly, the Pakistan-India detente was instrumental in these positive developments.

On the economic front too, there have been gains for Pakistan. The Euro bonds floated by Pakistan in March in the international market were three times oversubscribed. Critics argued that a higher interest rate in the Euro bonds attracted the investor.

Yet the government's reasons were two-fold- that it had floated the bonds to generate investment and demonstrate that its macro stability is now capable of attracting foreign investment.

An interesting comment from a multinational chief attending the Pakistan Development Forum- that his company operates in over 50 countries and Pakistan's security situation was not worse than in any other country.

NEW MANAGERS: K. Natwar Singh, the new Indian external affairs minister, and J. N. Dixit, the national security adviser, are men who will now be calling the shots on India's foreign policy.

Both have been career diplomats with vast experience in India's foreign policy making and have served as high commissioners in Islamabad in the late 70s and 80s. Mr Natwar Singh, a long-time loyalist of the Gandhi family, was a minister in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet and has been the principal adviser on foreign policy to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. Mr Dixit, a former foreign secretary, is a latecomer to the Congress and has been a member of the Congress foreign relations committee.

Old-timers in Islamabad believe that the Congress will continue with the 'peace with Pakistan' slogan but be unyielding on the Kashmir issue. Former Pakistani diplomats, who have interacted with both Mr Natwar Singh and Mr Dixit, view them as the "toughest of hardliners" in India's foreign policy establishment.

It is suggested here that the policy on Pakistan will be exclusively fashioned by the Natwar-Dixit duo and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will have a minimal role in it.

The bottomline is that there will be no change from the old Congress days on Kashmir. Mr Dixit has already stated there cannot be alienation on Kashmir and talked of adjustments along the LoC. Mr Natwar Singh is now advocating ties with Pakistan along the China model.

Simply put, this appears like asking Pakistan to forget about Kashmir for the time being and move ahead with other issues. The message from foreign policy practitioners and experts in Islamabad is that Pakistan should have no illusions on Kashmir.

While in Indian quarters, Mr Dixit is seen as an astute man who fully recognizes as well as understands the complexities of Pakistan-India relations, Pakistani diplomats seem wary of him because of his anti-Pakistan view and for what is said to be his habit of often falsely attributing negative things to people. It remains to be seen whether he will keep alive the back-channel diplomacy that his predecessor Brajesh Mishra pursued so vigorously.