Sabres rattle again

Kerry urged both India-Pakistan to continue with peace talks, presumably in full knowledge of positions taken by them

With US Secretary of State John Kerry having departed, whatever positive impact his visit to India and Pakistan may have had, is largely obscured by the rhetoric that comes from both sides. The most strident has come from Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh, who revisited old territory on January 13 by accusing Pakistan of waging a proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir. He was speaking to a group of Indian journalists and will be well aware that his remarks are heard on this side of the border as well as in his own country. He also went on to say that he would “watch and wait” to see if the Pakistan Army had what he termed a “change of heart” in the light of the massacre in Peshawar’s Army Public School on December 16, 2014. This, he said, was proof positive that the terrorist infrastructure was intact in Pakistan.

On the same day that the Indian army chief was making his accusations — which of course lacked any kind of detail — the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, Sartaj Aziz, said that there was no point in entering talks with India unless Kashmir was on the agenda, which of course India is unwilling to allow and the sterile game of diplomatic tennis continues. Mr Kerry had urged both countries to continue with peace talks, presumably in full knowledge of the positions taken both by India and Pakistan. That it is in the interests of both to do so, with obvious mutual — and substantial — benefits from so doing is not in dispute.

The low-intensity conflict along the Line of Control and the working boundary costs money and lives almost every day. Accusations as to who fired first fly as often as the shells. Secretary-level talks were called off last year by India quite unreasonably when the Pakistan high commissioner to New Delhi held talks with Hurriyat leaders, a practice which is not new and did not garner such a reaction from India before. The rebooting of these talks has proved impossible thus far. There is no magic solution. Both sides have to want a peaceful resolution, and as matters stand today, it is difficult to discern a game-changing desire.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2015.

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