ISLAMABAD, June 19: There is growing uncertainty about whether the Pakistan-India foreign secretary-level talks in the run up to the foreign ministers’ meeting would take place next month as scheduled.
The foreign secretary level talks are slated for July 20 and the meeting of the foreign ministers for July 21-22.
The prospects of the talks are becoming dim as the dates approach and there is no sign of the Manmohan government filling the foreign minister slot that fell vacant after Natwar Singh’s exit.
The standard practice under the composite dialogue process has been that meetings of the foreign secretaries and foreign ministers are held back-to-back with the former preparing for the latter.
The absence of a foreign minister in India, therefore, casts a dark shadow on the foreign secretaries’ talks and hence on the foreign minister’s meeting. Protocol forbids Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri to hold talks with the minister of state.
Mr Kasuri himself declared in an interview to the Indian daily Asian Age on June 16 that the absence of a foreign minister in India was a “handicap” and that did not augur well for the ongoing peace process. The headline: “Kasuri: ‘Who do I talk to?’ aptly sums up this predicament.
While there is an attempt by the Indian Minister for External Affairs to downgrade the dialogue to the minister of state level, sources say Islamabad is reluctant to do that. There is a concern in some quarters that if Pakistan agrees to it the dialogue would forever be stuck at this level. Another view is that the Indo-Pakistan dialogue process that has been revived only recently requires full backing of senior most level of political leadership to give it impetus.
Meanwhile, India is also trying to de-link the two meetings and go ahead with the talks between the foreign secretaries for the time being. However, Pakistan sees no point of this exercise without firm dates for the foreign ministers’ meeting for which the foreign secretaries basically prepare the agenda.
Clearly for now the ball is in India’s court. Should Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decide to appoint a foreign minister the uncertainty would end.
