Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: February 23, 2007
Author:
India and Pakistan held more than two dozen
secret meetings in third countries from 2004 to 2007 but failed to reach a
historic breakthrough on Kashmir, even though the two sides had had "come
to semicolons,'' according to American Pulitzer Prize winner authorjournalist
Steve Coll. Coll's account of the breakthrough that was not reached is set
for publication in the "New Yorker" magazine.
The effort which began in 2004 stalled in
2007, and the prospects for a settlement were further undermined by deadly
terrorist attacks on Mumbai in November, the Washington Post said on Sunday
quoting from the article.
The attempt ultimately failed, not because
of substantive differences, Coll explains, but because declining political
fortunes left then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf without the clout he
needed to sell the agreement at home.
Although Musharraf fought for the deal he
became so weak politically that he "couldn't sell himself", let
alone a surprise peace deal with India, Coll says, quoting senior Pakistani
and Indian officials. This was despite the fact that the Pakistani military
was completely on board at top levels with Musharraf but the paradigm shift
could not be translated into actions.
(Musharraf, it will be recalled, had started
losing support rapidly on account of his tiff with the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court.) Coll, a former Washington Post managing editor, writes that
the Kashmir specific secret Indo-Pak talks would have represented a "paradigm
shift" in relations between the arch foes of the subcontinent.
The plan envisaged resolving the Kashmir dispute
through the creation of an autonomous region in which local residents could
move freely and conduct trade on both sides of the territorial boundary. The
historic agreement, if it were to happen, would have made the border irrelevant
and demilitarized the entire Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control.
The secret negotiations revolved around developing a document known as a "non-paper",
diplomatic jargon for a negotiated text that bears no names or signatures
and can "serve as a deniable but detailed basis for a deal", the
article says. The U.S. and British governments were aware of the talks and
offered low-key support but chose not to meddle. Relations - and hopes for
resuming the peace initiative - began a downward slide after Musharraf left
office, it said. In Kashmir, anti-India fighters began an aggressive campaign
of public demonstrations and terrorist attacks that seemed designed, Coll
writes, to send a message: "Musharraf is gone, but the Kashmir war is
alive."
