A day after external affairs minister S M Krishna returned from a disappointing visit to Islamabad, it now turns out that the Indian delegation did stretch its mandate to the maximum and, in a bid to achieve a positive result, even agreed to hold talks on issues of peace and security, Jammu and Kashmir, and Siachen ?at an appropriate time?.
However, sources said, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was not happy with an open-ended language like ?at an appropriate time? and wanted India to specify a timeline. India, on its part, said it was in no position to provide a timeframe as the progress and pace of these talks are linked to the simultaneous progress in the Mumbai attacks investigation.
These were, in fact, the three issues on which India had wanted to wait a bit longer, making the point that action by Pakistan on the terror front would act as a ?catalyst? for these conversations to begin. But when the Pakistan side was unwilling to accept anything less than resumption of the composite dialogue in all its formality, sources said, India made this offer then and there as a way forward. While it seemed like an acceptable way out to many, the Pakistan foreign minister was apparently quite adamant.
Since the two of the three issues? Jammu and Kashmir as well as peace and security?are dealt by the foreign secretaries even in composite dialogue mechanism, it was suggested to announce a FS-level meeting. On Siachen, the suggestion was to announce a meeting of the ?concerned officials?, instead of defence secretaries as is the case in the composite dialogue. The Indian side had also agreed to hold talks on Sir Creek.
In essence, India was prepared to make forward looking announcements for talks on all items in the composite dialogue minus the nomenclature and without a specified time-table. When this too failed to draw a positive response from the Pakistan foreign minister, the Indian delegation was left with no choice but reconcile to an unsatisfactory result.
India had already agreed to talks between secretaries of home, commerce, culture and water resources besides meetings on cross-LoC trade and release of prisoners and fishermen.
There is also a sense of concern here at the way Qureshi conducted himself at the talks and his ?petulance? that left the Indian side quite surprised. Sources pointed out that there seemed a lot of emphasis on optics like drawing up a calendar for talks rather than focus on substantive elements on the table. As Qureshi on Saturday sought to tone down his remarks, India is still taking the view that Pakistan does want dialogue but there was a large gap in expectations.