WASHINGTON, Sept 8: The meeting between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Havana later this month can help revive the India-Pakistan peace process but to make this happen the two leaders will have to show a real commitment to the process.
Speakers at a seminar on the peace process at Washington’s Heritage Foundation on Friday also stressed the need for India and Pakistan to move ahead with the process instead of waiting for a third party support for making it happen.
“The dialogue process cannot revive unless it gets a personal infusion of energy from the two leaders,” said Ambassador Teresita Schaffer. “This has happened before and could happen in Havana too.”
Ms Schaffer, director of the South Asia Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, however, noted that there does not seem to be enough ‘back channel’ preparations to make this happen.
She also discussed various proposals for resolving the Kashmir dispute and suggested that creating joint institutions for managing affairs of the disputed territory would be a major positive step.
Dr Walter Andersen, director of the South Asia Studies Programme at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, said that India’s decision to delay the foreign secretary-level talks after the July 11 Mumbai blasts, showed that the process continues to be held hostage to terrorism.
