Taunting begins: We forced India to talk, says Pak minister

[seedhi]

This was bound to happen. Just look at what is coming out of pakistan since India agreed for talks: JuD holds a massive meeting, Hafiz Sayeed threatens jehad and terrorism in Kashmir and all over India and now pakistani minister gloating over India's lack of spine. Great, just great..

We forced India to talk, says Pak minister Islamabad: Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has claimed that India agreed to resume bilateral dialogue because Pakistan did not give in to pressure. Qureshi boasted of forcing India to come to the talking table while addressing a public gathering in Multan on Sunday. "India, which had talked of severing all contacts with us, has now come to us. We never kneeled down before them and kept sticking to our stance," claimed Qureshi. Qureshi had just a week back complained about India's reluctance to talk and had even threatened to go the United Nation to force India. "Pakistan will approach the international forum if India does not agree to talk," Qureshi had said while speaking in London. India and Pakistan have agreed to take steps to restore ties that had been severed following the 26/11 terror attacks. The foreign secretaries of the two countries are expected to meet later this month as a part of a new confidence building exercise. A broad agreement has been reached that the two foreign secretaries will focus on rebuilding confidence post 26/11. On the agenda will be ways to enhance co-operation in counter-terrorism, enhancing cross LoC and bilateral trade, enhancing travel linkages like new buses and train services, boosting tourism flows to each other's countries, ensuring sanctity of the ceasefire, humanitarian issues such as those on prisoner treatment and facilitating release of fishermen. Both sides have agreed to junk the old composite dialogue format and talks, to start with, will focus on humanitarian issues and confidence building measures, leaving tricky issues like the Kashmir dispute to much later. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/we-forced-india-to-talk-says-pak-minister/109833-2.html?from=tn

[Lurker]

This was bound to happen. Just look at what is coming out of pakistan since India agreed for talks: JuD holds a massive meeting' date= Hafiz Sayeed threatens jehad and terrorism in Kashmir and all over India and now pakistani minister gloating over India's lack of spine. Great, just great..

Yes, lets look at it. From the link that you have posted. On the agenda will be: a) ways to enhance co-operation in counter-terrorism b) enhancing cross LoC and bilateral trade c) enhancing travel linkages like new buses and train services d) boosting tourism flows to each other's countries e) ensuring sanctity of the ceasefire f) humanitarian issues such as those on prisoner treatment and facilitating release of fishermen Furthermore: Both sides have agreed to junk the old composite dialogue format and talks, to start with, will focus on humanitarian issues and confidence building measures, leaving tricky issues like the Kashmir dispute to much later. Looks like the agenda was set entirely from Indian point of view! These are all India's talking point while Pakistan's view point starts with Kashmir, which is not even on initial list! What are you really cribbing about? Some politik-talk?? Stop sensationalizing mate. xxx

[seedhi]

Yes, lets look at it. From the link that you have posted. On the agenda will be: a) ways to enhance co-operation in counter-terrorism b) enhancing cross LoC and bilateral trade c) enhancing travel linkages like new buses and train services d) boosting tourism flows to each other's countries e) ensuring sanctity of the ceasefire f) humanitarian issues such as those on prisoner treatment and facilitating release of fishermen Furthermore: Both sides have agreed to junk the old composite dialogue format and talks, to start with, will focus on humanitarian issues and confidence building measures, leaving tricky issues like the Kashmir dispute to much later. Looks like the agenda was set entirely from Indian point of view! These are all India's talking point while Pakistan's view point starts with Kashmir, which is not even on initial list! What are you really cribbing about? Some politik-talk?? Stop sensationalizing mate. xxx

Talks on all of the above matters were going on even before 26/11. The talks on Kashmir issue were deadlocked anyway. India's point, till a couple of weeks ago was: NO TALKS UNTIL SUBSTANTIVE ACTION IS TAKEN BY PAKISTAN AGAINST TERRRORIST GROUPS. I have to ask : what has changed in the last few weeks for India to propose talks? What do we gain by talks anyway? The only thing that I see is that infiltration in Kashmir is up, JuD is holding public meetings and India seems to be cut out of the Afghanistan matrix by the NATO. Seems to me that it is pressure of US along with blackmailing that has forced India's hands.

[The Outsider]

Yes, lets look at it. From the link that you have posted. On the agenda will be: a) ways to enhance co-operation in counter-terrorism b) enhancing cross LoC and bilateral trade c) enhancing travel linkages like new buses and train services d) boosting tourism flows to each other's countries e) ensuring sanctity of the ceasefire f) humanitarian issues such as those on prisoner treatment and facilitating release of fishermen Furthermore: Both sides have agreed to junk the old composite dialogue format and talks, to start with, will focus on humanitarian issues and confidence building measures, leaving tricky issues like the Kashmir dispute to much later. Looks like the agenda was set entirely from Indian point of view! These are all India's talking point while Pakistan's view point starts with Kashmir, which is not even on initial list! What are you really cribbing about? Some politik-talk?? Stop sensationalizing mate. xxx

Lurker, as I said in the other thread there is no point of India and Pakistan talking till terrorism is weeded out in a proactive way by Pakistan and some headway is made towards a practical solution to Kashmir instead of all the garbage about freedom movement, jihad, and plebiscite. There have been a lot of these talks in the past, but they will inevitably breakdown in the face of the next terrorist attack, which is no longer a question of if but when.

[Lurker]

India's point, till a couple of weeks ago was: NO TALKS UNTIL SUBSTANTIVE ACTION IS TAKEN BY PAKISTAN AGAINST TERRRORIST GROUPS.

If you look at the list, cross border terrorism is point number 1.

I have to ask : what has changed in the last few weeks for India to propose talks? What do we gain by talks anyway?

What do we gain by no-talks? At best it is a standstill with no progress. At worst it gives Pakistani an excuse, something they exploit excellently mind you, to say that they want discussions but Delhi wont listen. Personally I definitely want conversations around issues like terrorism, caesfire, tourism,innocent fishermen etc being discussed. xxx

[Lurker]

Lurker' date= as I said in the other thread there is no point of India and Pakistan talking till terrorism is weeded out in a proactive way by Pakistan and some headway is made towards a practical solution to Kashmir instead of all the garbage about freedom movement, jihad, and plebiscite.

Thats easier said than done Shwetabh. Terrorism is NOT going to be weeded out completely from Pakistan. USA has been trying that for a decade now, whats the result? We now have Pakistan in more of a shambles than it ever was. We need to realize this and engage Pakistan. I am not suggesting we surrender our interests but when Pakistan is in a turmoil we got to play our diplomatic cards right. No point in sitting on our thumb, the way I see it.

[The Outsider]

^ I am not suggesting for a moment that we should resume talks when the entire or even a significant part of the terrorism industry in Pakistan has been weeded out. All I want to see before going to the table is at the very minimum some proactive steps taken in that direction. For starters, how about a clampdown on organizations openly declaring Jihad against India? Or even some arrests of and clampdowns on JuD? Surely, that's not too high a bar to set.

[seedhi]

If you look at the list, cross border terrorism is point number 1. What do we gain by no-talks? At best it is a standstill with no progress. At worst it gives Pakistani an excuse, something they exploit excellently mind you, to say that they want discussions but Delhi wont listen. Personally I definitely want conversations around issues like terrorism, caesfire, tourism,innocent fishermen etc being discussed. xxx

Ok let me explain why actually talking to pakistan puts India in a backfoot. Let us recall what happened prior to 26/11. Talks were going on between India and pakistan, and the GoI committed the following follies which hit right back at us the day 26/11 happened. 1. India and pakistan "agreed" that talks should not be suspended by any terrorist attack. So we saw a slew of terrorist attacks - Delhi 05, Mumbai 06, Hyderabad 07, Jaipur-Ahmd-Delhi 08. But the talks were not called off. After 26/11 however we did call off the talks thereby contradicting the "agreement" which was anyway a stupid one. 2. India and pakistan set up a joint anti-terror mechanism which simply an absurd unworkable concept. GoI regularly provided pakistan inputs through the mechanism after each terrorist attack in India, only to see pakistan obfuscate everytime. And on 26/11 again we had to witness pakistanis asking us to again utilize the joint anti-terror mechanism. Another blunder which backfired on us. 3. This is a bit unrelated, but Manmohan Singh declared in his meeting with Musharraf, right after the 7/11 Mumbai bombings which killed 200 people, that pakistan is also a victim of terror - something that left most of the foreign policy analysts aghast. Again came back to bite us after 26/11 when pakistanis could not cease quoting MMS to declare themselves co-victims of terror. The gist of my point is that India seems to have blundered in talks with pakistan, almost always. The latest was the Sharm-al-Sheikh fiasco. The last time anything substantial was achieved was by Vajpayee in 2004 when Musharraf committed to not allowing pakistani soil for terrorism in India - even that turned out to be an empty promise but at least its something we have on paper. Another reason I am apprehensive is my feeling that Manmohan Singh seems naive when it comes to pakistan. In the present set up it is not a secret that he is incharge of the foreign policy - SMK and Tharoor are simply too lightweight to do anything on their own. As a diplomat KC Singh put it, MMS has the tendency to "go out on a limb" when it comes to pakistan. He did it with Musharraf in Havana 06, and he did it in Sharm-al-Sheikh. And now, SS Menon who was "responsible" for the "bad drafting" at Sharm-al-Sheikh has been appointed as National Security Advisor (which is a bit strange, given that SS Menon has hardly got any experience in internal security). I am afraid this whole recipe has disaster written all over it. As someone put it once: we should not talk to pakistan, if not for anything else but the fact that we do not know how to talk to pakistan.

[DomainK]

These kind of taunts are so womanly.:wall: