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Vajpayee's trip to Pakistan promises a breakthrough

George Iype in New Delhi

When Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharief and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee shake hands at the Wagah border on Saturday, they will herald a new era in diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Amidst the bon homie and pomp accompanying Vajpayee's historic bus trip to Lahore will be a series of "diplomatic initiatives of substance" which external affairs ministry officials say will be "unprecedented in Indo-Pak history."

Both Vajpayee and Sharief will sign a set of agreements that will broadly include nuclear, security, and trade and commerce issues.

Top officials of the external affairs ministry and their counterparts in Pakistan will meet in Islamabad today and tomorrow to chalk out the modalities of the Vajpayee-Sharief dialogue and the nature of confidence-building measures to be adopted.

"The Vajpayee-Sharief meeting will be the first true, intentional summit in the past 10 years to sincerely start strategic talks between the two countries," one official told Rediff On The NeT. Though both countries held many rounds of secretary-level talks in the past, "nothing fruitful has come through yet".

"But the difference in this bus trip diplomacy is that by opening the Wagah border, the governments are taking the first initiatives for people-to-people contact," the official said.

He said the meeting of the premiers will essentially touch upon four crucial issues: Kashmir, nuclear confidence-building measures, security, and trade and commerce.

Sharief is said to be keen to make Kashmir the focus of the talks. Last year, the foreign secretary-level talks between two countries had collapsed after differences arose on the modalities of setting up the working groups and especially as India refused to set up a working group on Kashmir.

India is expected to express its willingness to discuss Kashmir provided Sharief also discusses the seven other outstanding issues of peace and security, Siachen, the Wullar barrage and the Tulbul navigation project, Sir Creek, terrorism and drug trafficking, economic and commercial co-operation, and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields.

On the nuclear question, Vajpayee is likely to go by the proposals India had put forward after both countries conducted their nuclear tests in May 1998. These proposals include an agreement not to attack each other's nuclear, civilian and economic targets, to give advance notice on flight testing of missiles, and to exchange high-level visits of military and nuclear personnel.

The external affairs ministry officials believe the post-nuclear diplomatic rhetoric between India and Pakistan and the international economic sanctions on the countries will actually spur both Vajpayee and Sharief to look for dramatic ways to discuss their fundamental differences in Lahore.

Both New Delhi and Islamabad are also under pressure from their businessmen to broaden trade and economic ties between the two countries.

Therefore, the Vajpayee-Sharief summit in Lahore will probably begin with a bilateral trade protocol over India's purchase of electricity from Pakistan. Pakistan has offered to sell nearly 2000 MW of electricity to the power-starved north Indian states and officials have almost completed negotiations to fix the deal.

Officials give Vajpayee credit for improvement in Indo-Pak ties

External affairs ministry officials say the new thrust of the India-Pakistan relations is "entirely Vajpayee's own idea".

Soon after becoming prime minister, Vajpayee had pledged that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition's top priority would be to maintain friendly relations with Pakistan and other neighbouring countries.

While his first official public engagement on being sworn in was to witness the India-Pakistan hockey Test at the National Stadium in New Delhi, the prime minister himself held the crucial external affairs portfolio for eight months.

Diplomatic circles feared the main hurdle to re-opening the India-Pakistan dialogue would be the BJP's avowed policy on national security and the nuclear option. The party's election manifesto had pledged "to take active steps to persuade Pakistan to abandon its present policy of hostile interference" in India's internal affairs by supporting insurgent and terrorist groups.

After the bluster over nuclear weapons and missiles, many believed it would be difficult for the neighbours to re-open genuine bilateral dialogue.

"But Vajpayee has personally taken the initiative to remove the roadblocks. The historic bus trip has ended the diplomatic shadow-boxing between India and Pakistan," an official said.

Diplomatic observers are now waiting to see if the Vajpayee-Sharief bon homie gives the desired momentum for the peace process.

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