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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  What’s up with Pakistan?
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What’s up with Pakistan?

Pakistan is now seen to be offering an olive branch to India, but is the latest effort genuine?

The latest olive branch from Pakistan’s Abdul Basit came on 8 December when the envoy said that Islamabad did not want to live in “perpetual hostility” with India. Photo: Indranil Bhoumik/MintPremium
The latest olive branch from Pakistan’s Abdul Basit came on 8 December when the envoy said that Islamabad did not want to live in “perpetual hostility” with India. Photo: Indranil Bhoumik/Mint

New Delhi: After months of cross-border abetment of movement of terrorists and countless breaches of ceasefire, Pakistan is now seen to be offering an olive branch to India.

The question is: is the latest effort genuine?

Analysts are unconvinced and dismiss it as usual tactics with former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal describing it as “nothing but pure unadulterated hypocrisy".

One of the earliest examples of Pakistan offering an olive branch to India came in October when Pakistan’s envoy to India Abdul Basit said in an interview to The Indian Express that the two countries need to talk to each other to break the ice. In the interview, he argued in favour of a sustained dialogue and result-oriented engagement, which he said were in the mutual interest of both countries. He had also stressed on the need “to bring diplomacy to centrestage".

The interview came within a week of India’s surgical strike against terrorist launchpads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on 28-29 September.

Another so called “olive branch" was extended when Basit, in an interview to The India Today news channel in late November, urged India to formalise a ceasefire understanding reached in 2003 to stop firing along the border of the two countries.

Basit said the escalating tensions along the de facto Line of Control or LoC border in Kashmir was not in Pakistan’s interest. The Pakistan Army, he said, was heavily committed in fighting insurgent groups in Pakistan in an operation code-named Zarb-e-Azb launched some years ago.

Notably, the two statements came amid reports of intense shelling and firing along the borders from the Pakistani side. According to India, Pakistan upping the ante along the border means providing cover for terrorists to infiltrate into India. With snowfall in the winter expected to block infiltration paths soon, Indian officials say the intensification of shelling and firing along the border was aimed at pushing in as many infiltrators as possible before the passes get filled with snow.

Basit’s urging of India to formalise a ceasefire understanding reached in 2003 came on 29 November, almost coinciding with a terrorist attack on an Indian army garrison in Nagrota in Jammu region, which is also the headquarters of the Indian Army’s 16 corps.

The latest olive branch from Pakistan’s Basit came on 8 December when the envoy said that Islamabad did not want to live in “perpetual hostility" with India. He also called for an “uninterrupted and uninterruptable" bilateral engagement, saying that the two countries must overcome their differences in order to embark on an “irreversible trajectory" of cooperative relationship.

Analysts in New Delhi dismissed Pakistan’s peace talk.

“Pakistan’s position is and has been that till you resolve the Kashmir dispute, there will be no movement on any other front," said Sibal, referring to Pakistan claiming all of Jammu and Kashmir as part of its territory.

“I see these statements as an effort to manipulate the peace lobby in India," he said, referring to those in favour of holding a dialogue with Pakistan despite repeated terror attacks.

Interpreting Basit’s comments, Sibal said Pakistan’s point seems to be “that India and Pakistan hold a dialogue which is immune from terrorism" which is a core concern of India.

Pakistan seems to have understood that India has not been able to find an answer to the asymmetrical warfare ie terrorism, he said, adding, “Pakistan’s offers only make it seem good vis a vis the international community—that it is willing to have talks with India but India is not coming forward."

The subtext was also that Pakistan will not and should not be asked to give up terrorism, Sibal added.

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Published: 09 Dec 2016, 12:56 PM IST
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