Summary Sartaj Aziz is likely to meet the Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawraj
Dunya Report (Shahzad Badar )
Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz is likely to meet the Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawraj in Nepal, on 17th March. This would be the first high level meeting after a long break since the terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase in India which resulted in cancellation of the secretary level talks.
Political analysts believe that it would be wise for the senior diplomats to capitalizing on the SAARC Council of Foreign Minister’s meeting to be held in Pokhara in Nepal and break the ice which has frozen Indo-Pak talks despite Pakistan’s sincere efforts to curb non state actors from using its territory for attacks on India.
Early resumption of talks ahead of the nuclear security summit in Washington where Modi and Sharif are likely to meet would help expedite the peace process and would provide an opportunity for the two leaders to thrash out irritants and hurdles preventing forward movement.
The Pakistani Foreign office has confirmed that the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz will meet Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawraj besides other SAARC foreign ministers. However, there has been no official report or confirmation on the possibility of a bilateral meeting between the two. According to Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup “India has not scheduled any bilateral meeting with Pakistan or other countries”.
Secretary level talks were supposed to take place but the Indian’s were not willing to talk unless their specific demands for investigations into the Pathankot attack were met. The meeting between Aziz and Swaraj would help initiate the secretary level talks which came to an abrupt end in December 2015.
The foreign office had made it clear that the purpose of the advisors meeting would be to extend Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s invitation to the SAARC head of states for the next SAARC meeting due in Islamabad this year. “The Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Mr. Sartaj Aziz, will meet Foreign Ministers of SAARC Countries on the sidelines of the SAARC Council of Ministers meeting on 17 March 2016 in Nepal to extend Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif s formal invitation to their respective Heads of State/Heads of Government for the 19th SAARC Summit, being hosted by Pakistan in Islamabad this year”. This latest foreign office statement does not comment on the Advisor’s meeting with the Indian External Minister nor the issues to be discussed.
Pakistani analysts are of the opinion that Sartaj Aziz would use the opportunity to break the ice and prepare grounds for better relations as Sharif and Modi are both interested in continuation of the peace talks that were initiated as a result of Modi’s visit to the Sharif’s residence in Lahore last Christmas.
India had taken a U turn and changed its mood to talk peace with Pakistan. Despite the PML(N) government going all the way to please the Modi government - sealing Jaish e Mohammed (JeM) seminaries, arresting Azhar Masood and even registering an FIR for a crime committed in India without verifying the nationality of the attackers all have apparently failed to convince the Indian side that Pakistan has done its part and it was India’s turn to reciprocate. Curbing and fighting terrorism in the region is difficult which no state can do it alone. India fails to understand that it is beyond the state capacity to control every non state actors sneaking through a border which run for many kilometers.
Pakistan’s sincerity can be judged from the fact that the Pakistani government had shared intelligence about the infiltration of 10 terrorists from the Pakistani side into Indian Gujrat. Acting on this information alert from Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Naseer Khan Janjua, India had successfully “neutralized” three of the 10 terrorists suspected to have crossed the border to carry out an attack in Gujarat during Maha Shivratri. END
