Nawaz Sharif must honour the Ufa agreement
Even the cynics must have hoped that this time around, they would be proven wrong. After the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan issued a joint statement following a meeting between the Prime Ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Ufa, Russia, in which both sides agreed to expedite the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case, by giving additional information like “providing voice samples”, and kept out any direct reference to Kashmir, it seemed that finally talks were getting back on track. Hopes soared also with the understanding that the National Security Advisors of the two countries would meet soon in New Delhi to discuss all issues “connected to terrorism”.
Unfortunately, the optimism was short-lived. Within hours of the Ufa joint statement, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's advisor Sartaj Aziz all but trashed the document, saying that any talk with India must necessarily have the issue of Kashmir right on top of the agenda. He implied that India must not be under the impression that just because the Ufa joint statement did not mention Kashmir, the matter was on the backburner for Islamabad. For good measure, he added that terrorism was subordinate to the Kashmir issue because everything, including the subject of terrorism, flowed from the unresolved Kashmir problem. Meanwhile, Pakistan's 26/11 case prosecutor has refused to file a motion in the court to obtain the Mumbai terror attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman lakhvi's voice sample on the ground that the sample cannot be had without his client's express approval.
Taken together, these statements indicate that Pakistan is, like many times before, going back on its commitment to bring the terrorist to book, and has sought to push the issue of terror in the background. Now, it is to be seen whether Mr Sharif has the political will to stand by the Ufa agreement. He must be finding himself boxed into a corner and it will not be surprising if he reneges on the understanding. The Opposition is accusing him of selling out to India, with a senior Pakistan Muslim league leader, Mr Mushahid Hussain, publicly saying that the omission of the Kashmir issue was a mistake Mr Sharif made. The Pakistani Prime Minister has also to contend with the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence, which have traditionally been anti-India and have set the India-agenda for even democratically-elected regimes in Islamabad.
New Delhi's reaction to the turnaround has for now been muted, possibly because it does not want to add to Mr Sharif’s troubles back home, and also possibly because it believes that Mr Sharif will eventually find a face-saving way out of the situation that will also take care of India's concerns. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has sought to downplay the statements emanating from Pakistan by saying that certain people there were making remarks to cater to their “constituencies”. Even if that were true, the proof of the pudding lies in its eating. If Pakistan fails to supply lakhvi's voice samples or repeatedly raises the Kashmir bogey by nudging out the issue of terrorism directed at India from Pakistani soil, it will not help further the dialogue process. The Ufa agreement can be the starting point for a fresh beginning, provided Islamabad is willing.