& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Does Simla Agreement Still Hold?

Pakistan Misses Chance on Kashmir

BETWEEN THE LINES

Kuldip Nayar writes from New Delhi
I why Pakistan has messed up the beginning of formal discussions on Kashmir For once it had turned the tables on India. In his letter to Prime Minister Naraalmha Rao. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had clinched the Issue by expressing his willingness to hold a dialogue under the Simla Agreement. New Delhi s stand is that the problem should be resolved bilaterally, without any third party coming tato the picture. Nawaz Sharif met the argument
Indian Foreign Secretary J N Dixit had to say. we shall discuss Kashmir' when his Pakistani counterpart, Shahryar Khan, said on arrival in Delhi that Pakistan would* hold a serious and meaningful discussion under the Simla Agreement. The talks between the two foreign secretaries also ended on a positive note A formal discussion on Kashmir was only a matter of time. Both sides awaited the outcome of the breakfast-meeting between the prime ministers at Jakarta for modalities.
Then came Nawaz Sharifs reference to Kashmir al the Non-Aligned Summit India got the opportunity of resiling from the position ft had taken at Delhi, again arguing that Islamabad was interested only in IntemationaJising the problem, not discussing It. That may have been -far from Nawaz Sharifs Intention but the damage was done.
At the breakfast meeting he was reportedly at pains to explain what he said in his speech was that Pakistan would like to resolve the
problem through bilateral dis cubslons How could It be con a trued a violation of the' Simla Agreement?'. he Is said to have quipped Apparently, this did not work. After the meting, Nawaz Sharif had to echo Naras Im ha Rao b observation that they had to overcome the setbacks that had taken place In the recent past. Obviously, the reference at the Summit was tn their minds
Why did Nawaz Sharif make the reference when he knew that It would Jeopardize the talks on Kashmir? New Delhi had conveyed to him beforehand Its determination to resist the Pakistani pressure to raise any bilateral matter at Jakarta What happened within a fortnight, between his invoking Article VI of the Simla Agreement, which proposes a durable and final settlement on Kashmir through discussions, and the Jakarta meet to effect a change in Islamabad ■ policy? Which were the circumstances that impelled him to bring In the UN resolutions on Kash mlr?
The plausible inference 1s that he was under domestic pressure An influential section of the Pakistani opinion re acted adversely to the switch over to die Simla Agreement from the UN resolutions. And Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader, stoked the fire by calling upon Nnwar Sharif, on the eve of his departure of Jakarta, to raise Kash mlr at the Summit and to thwart what she described ns India’s al tempts to renege from the UN resolutions.
It Is Ironical that she should have said so As the Pakistan prime minister, she had sent to New Delhi an unofficial emissary to assure the V P Singh government on the undertaking' that her father, Zulfikhar All Bhutto, had given at Simla to convert the line of control In Jammu and Kashmir Into an international border’. Her statement was the grist to political domestic mill. But It deterred Nawaz Sharif
from pursuing Ihc Simla Agreement.
Islamabad should know that tl cannot obliterate the Simla Agreement unilaterally. There Is a long history of conflict and confroninlion behind it The Agreement was meant to usher 1n an era of amity between the two countries, and It delineated certain contours of behaviour There Is nothing sacrosanct about It. But both sides have gone over all exercises, Including war, and should have found from their experience that there Is no go from the face-to-face talk
While New Delhi Is unnecessarily sensitive over the mere mention of Kashmir at international meets. Islamabad seems to draw a fiendish pleasure In doing so. The important thing for Pakistan is to have a dialogue on Kashmir, not to score point. Since India Is willing to hold the discussion bilaterally, let It be so.
The talks do not foreclose the options on any side. In fact, when the line of control resulting from the cease-fire In December 197). after the Bangladesh war. was consecrated through the Simla Agreement. It was without
prejudice to the recognised position of either side . Shahryar clarified in Delhi that the Simla Agreement did not mean that Pakistan will not Invoke the UN resolutions'. Then why docs Islamabad feel diffident In holding talks under the Agreement?
By this time the Pakistani rulers should have realised the futility of raising the matter here and there It may have given them a few headlines, which may be pleasing, but they have contributed little. Had Islamabad progressed even an Inch on Kashmir by mentioning II at International gatherings. Its Insistence on continuing to do so would have been understandable. But It has only amused the world.
In fact, 1t Is becoming counter-productive. Several countries have changed their earlier stand America and Great Britain, which were at one time at the back of Pakistan. now say that the Simla Agreement has supersede the UN resolutions on Kashmir. China, still close to Pakistan, has also veered round to the same point of view.
As far back as 1972. Zu I fikhar All Bhutto, then heading Pakistan, told me that he was sick of going around world chanceries for seeking support on Kashmir. He had come to believe that India and Pakistan had to sit across the table to resolve the problem. That Is the reason why he preferred a durable peace between the two countries to Kashmir as the first Item on the agenda for the Simla conference
One hopes that the stalling of talks on Kashmir will not undo the good work the two foreign secretaries have done In other fields For example. It has been agreed that the de fence secretaries of India and Pakistan would meet soon to resurrect the 1989 agreement on the Siachen Glacier in the north. At that time Humayun Khan, then foreign secretary, spoiled things by claiming be fore the press that India and Pakistan would withdraw their forces from the Siachen Glacier. This time In Delhi, an
overzeatous Pakistani delegate endangered a similar under standing by leaking it to some Indian newspapers.
New Delhi had to deny the story as It did in 1989. The nation has to be prepared first. The Siachen Glacier Is of no military significance to either India or Pakistan. The rede pfoyment of forces by converting the area into a no-man-territory. as it was at the time of the Simla Agreement, will help them save crores of rupees and scores of men dying at the hands of nature. The Islamabad bureaucrats may kill the proposal by Jumping the gun because the Impression gaining ground In India is that Pakistan Is trying to grab the glacier forcibly through the smokescreen of some proposal
It Is really the lack of faith between the two countries. This has also cast a shadow over the 16-year-old settlement on the Rann of Kutch. Then a tribunal had upheld Pakistan s claim to the northern half of Rann. However, the consequential change in the maritime boundaries tn Kutch is still hanging fire. There Is as much cussedness on the part of India on this point as Is on the Pakistan part on the Tulbul Reservoir project at the Wullar Lake, near Srinagar
At present, these are the only paddle to hand, difficult but not intractable. If tackled, they may engender the much needed goodwill to attack the Kashmir problem. If not. political sloppiness will continue to plague relations between the two countries.