Pak-India anti-terror talks

AT the anti-terrorism talks between Pakistan and India in New Delhi on Monday the two sides shared “new information” on terrorism incidents, but as to what was that information the joint statement issued at the end of this second round under the rubric of Joint Anti-terrorism Mechanism (JATM) made no elaboration. Coming as it did soon after the Karachi carnage on Benazir Bhutto’s arrival on Friday, following three earlier incidents of bomb blasts in India, the possibility that the two sides discussed all these terrorist acts cannot be ruled out. Of course, the statement was not as blank as the sensitivity of its agenda warranted. It did say that the process of sharing information would continue, as the two sides “agreed to continue to work to identify measures, exchange specific information and assist investigations”. According to the joint statement, the third round of the talks in the framework of JATM, which was set up by President Musharraf and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in their meeting at Havana in September 2006, will take place in Islamabad in the next three or four months. Given that both Pakistan and India are currently beset by growing incidence of terrorism - in India it is ongoing insurgencies in the restive regions while Pakistan is facing terrorism bred by extremism flowing out of the Afghanistan imbroglio - JATM has to acquire a more prominent role. What a pity that in the wake of recent blasts in Hyderabad, Ajmer and Ludhiana the Indian officials did not exercise restraint in blaming Pakistan for these incidents, defying the rationale of holding regular anti-terrorism parleys as envisaged under the JATM! Here one may point out that a clear relationship is discernible between India’s increasing presence in parts of Afghanistan close to the Pakistan border and stepped up militancy in tribal areas.
Let all these issues be the staple food for the anti-terrorism mechanism put in place by the leaders of the two countries as part of confidence-building measures. One may also take issue with Prime Minister Singh’s assertion that the peace process between the two countries has slowed down because of Pakistan’s domestic problems. If that were the definition of ‘domestic problems’ what would then one say of the ongoing trouble that Dr Singh’s government has run into following his nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States? As to what should come under shaper focus of the Pak-India bilateral relationship was so succinctly spelt out by the new spokesman of Pakistan Foreign Office. In his maiden press briefing on Monday, Muhammad Sadiq, marked out “three vital elements”, which, if addressed, can help secure lasting peace between Pakistan and India. First and foremost, he said, is conflict resolution, followed by nuclear stability and conventional military balance between the two countries. Ever since President Pervez Musharraf unilaterally announced ceasefire along the Line of Control in Kashmir the two sides have been able to agree to a series of confidence-building measures in various fields of public and private sector activities. This has led to tangible progress in some areas, particularly commercial relations between the two countries. But there is no real progress in what constitutes the ‘mother of all problems’ - Kashmir. With CBMs in place all over why should the two sides not now move from conflict management to conflict resolution? That calls for expediting the pace of composite dialogue which envisages resolution of Kashmir problem as one of the principal objectives of the dialogue.

Turkey and Kurds

THE Turkish bombardment, air attacks and brief troop incursion into Iraq yesterday were madness. The handful of PKK rebels allegedly slain is likely to be out of all proportion to the diplomatic and political consequences the Turks will suffer. Thanks to Turkey’s threat of military action, the Maliki government in Baghdad had agreed to close down the PKK Kurdish rebels in Iraq. Since the Iraqi prime minister’s influence does not extend very far beyond his office door, this agreement could only have been implemented with the cooperation of the authorities in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. The regional leader Massud Barzani made it clear last week that any Turkish attack on the PKK in Iraq would be resisted by all Iraqi Kurds. Now that the Turks have struck, albeit lightly, the mood of the local Kurdish authorities will have hardened against proscribing the PKK. That is not to say that many Iraqi Kurds do not wish that the 3,000 or so PKK guerrillas, who have located themselves on their side of the border, would go away. The Kurdish region enjoys stability and commercial prosperity that exists nowhere else in Iraq. For the first time since the short-lived 1946 Republic of Mahabad in Iran, the Kurds have a self-governing region in which they are largely masters of their own destiny. The machinations of a bunch of formerly doctrinaire Marxist Turkish Kurds menace this achievement. Just as the recent PKK murders of a score of Turkish soldiers has inflamed nationalist passions in Turkey, so revenge attacks by Turks into Iraq will ignite the anger of all Kurds. The stage is therefore rapidly being set for bloodletting and misery that will solve nothing but rather bring chaos to northern Iraq and international humiliation to Turkey.
There are grounds to believe that the Erdogan government in Ankara did not specifically authorize these attacks. Turkey’s generals who mistrust this moderate Islamic administration see the public mood is behind military revenge, not Erdogan’s diplomacy. Yet by carrying out the threat of force, even to such a limited degree, Turkey may have thrown away the diplomatic lever that seemed to be working. Washington, of course, has condemned the pre-emptive Turkish assault. This is arrant hypocrisy from a US government whose disastrous “pre-emptive” invasion of Iraq was mounted on a fabric of falsehoods, which backs Israeli strikes into Palestine, Lebanon or Syria and which even now threatens military assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The truth of course is that Washington is actually quite closely involved with the PKK. Even though it has declared it a terrorist organization, the Bush regime is actively supporting the PKK’s PJAK guerrillas in Iran. Thus it is perfectly possible that US weapons and aid shipped to PJAK are being used by the PKK against Turkey, one of America’s staunchest NATO allies. US duplicity must not be allowed to plunge Kurdish Iraq into the same bloodbath it has created in the rest of the country. Rather than posturing, Washington must do whatever it takes to persuade Barzani to close down the PKK locally while at the same time convincing Turkey’s US-equipped generals to back off.

— Arab News