Author: Jyoti Malhotra
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 25, 2002
URL: http://www.indian-express.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=3304
Introduction: Kofi Annan calls,
this time he makes right noises, China joins chorus, Patten weighs in with
Govt
Pressure continues to build on Pak
President General Pervez Musharraf with the international community weighing
in with New Delhi, one by one.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
called up New Delhi and Islamabad in the last 24 hours and asking both
leaderships to use restraint.
While Annan's call to Musharraf
yesterday came about the same time Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar
was seeking the UN's assistance to persuade India to come to the negotiating
table, his conversation with External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, also
yesterday, was said to be pointedly formal and correct.
At the best of times, New Delhi
has not been happy with what it sees as Annan's enthusiasm for intervening
between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. About a year ago, Delhi had politely
refused Annan a visa to visit, following which he went to Islamabad.
Today, though, Annan specifically
charged Pakistan with the responsibility to take action against terrorism
and infiltration.
Besides Annan, US leaders Condoleezza
Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell also took turns calling their
counterparts in Delhi over the last 24 hours. Significantly, Chinese Foreign
Minister Tang Jiaxuan joined the chorus of international voices today,
saying he hoped India and Pakistan would improve their relationship and
return to being friends.
Meanwhile, visiting European Union's
external affairs commissioner Chris Patten met both Singh and Principal
Secretary Brajesh Mishra, only to be told that India was reaching the ''breaking
point'' of its patience.
The US, which has led the world's
charge seeking to persuade India and Pakistan to back off from its eyeball-to
eyeball confrontation, has been gradually pulling out a number of cards
that seek to buy time from both capitals.
Thus, Powell told Jaswant Singh
that he had been talking to General Musharraf telling him to control terrorism,
and that given the volatility of hte situation it was crucial that such
action was also seen to be taken. Singh, in turn, is said to have told
Powell that New Delhi had been listening to such assurances for a very
long time and that the sole criterion for India's restraint would be ''action''
on the ground.
Rice has been keeping in regular
touch with her counterpart Mishra. She called him yesterday as she had
done earlier in the week. It has now been confirmed that US deputy secretary
of state Richard Armitage will arrive in New Delhi on June 7 from Pakistan,
with the exclusive purpose of breaking the logjam that could lead to the
world's first ever nuclear exchange.
Meanwhile, even as British foreign
secretary Jack Straw's visit to New Delhi stands confirmed for May 28-29,
the government seems to have taken a conscious decision not to overly react
to Straw's ''Kashmir is unfinished business'' statement to the BBC yesterday.
Patten's acceptance today of New
Delhi's view that it would be a ''profound miscalculation'' for Pakistan
to stop and start the terrorism tap and that this could be ''an adjunct
to diplomacy'' seems to have won the day for those in the MEA in favour
of allowing foreign visitors to come to Delhi.
Patten, who met both Mishra and
Singh this morning, was told that India had ''exercised patience of biblical
proportions in the face of grave provocation and terrorist violence from
Pakistan.'' In turn, he accepted that Pakistan must first reduce infiltration
and violence in order to reduce tension.
With tension spilling over into
the summit between Presidents Bush and Putin in Moscow, the first glimmer
of a breakthrough may perhaps be on the cards. India, it is being said,
could offer negotiations on all subjects, especially Kashmir, in exchange
for Pakistan promising to end terrorism in the same breath.
Still, it was Tang's call to Jaswant
Singh that could really be described as the major element of surprise in
the current situation. Observers pointed out that Beijing remains Pakistan's
''all-weather friend'' and for Tang to call Singh after his visit to Pakistan
and Afghanistan last week seems significant.
Last week, Tang and Karzai had announced
that they would jointly fight terrorism, including in the western Chinese
province of Xinjiang. Today, even as Tang called for restraint in his inimitable
way (''India and Pakistan should improve their relationship,'' he said)
, he also applauded New Delhi's efforts in its fight against terrorism.
