Hope for better Pakistan-India ties
Updated
There's fresh hope of improved relations between India and Pakistan, with both sides signalling a resumption of high-level talks. The dialogue was suspended after the 2008 Mumbai attacks which killed 166 people. The latest Indian proposal marks a significant shift, as New Delhi had previously insisted on Pakistan handing over the militants who planned the attacks, thought to be still on Pakistani soil. The planned talks between the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers are a small step but is it a significant one?
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Dr Marvin Weinbaum, former State Department analyst and current writer in residence at the Middle East Institute, Washington DC
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WEINBAUM: Well it is important because it is breaking the ice that's been in place, it's a very icy relationship since the Mumbai attack. And anything which suggests that they can get back to a situation of greater normalcy is good, particularly because while these discussions sometimes don't show very much progress, what's going on behind the scenes are back channel discussions where there are real discussions leading potentially to compromises.
LAM: Yes and on that note of being behind the scenes, how important is it that the two neighbours keep the lines of communcation open?
WEINBAUM: Well it's very important because right now we all fear a second Mumbai attack, particularly in the past as soon as the two countries seemed to be making progress that's when we get the Jihadi groups mounting the kind of attacks that they do in order torpedo this kind of progress. So if relations are reasonably good when something like this comes we have a much greater buffer against there leading to an outright armed conflict.
LAM: And this too against a background of growing nationalism in Pakistan?
WEINBAUM: Yes it is and it's been in part response to the fact that India did make great demands on Pakistan after the Mumbai attack when it asked for the delivery of a good number of people who it linked to the attack in Mumbai, and the Pakistanis were very defensive. They reacted in a way which pushed back against the Indians and one detects that not just because of that theatre, but also because of the deteriorating relations with the United States over the drone attacks and other things which they complain are violating their sovereignty.
LAM: And I guess the Pakistanis do have a good reason to be defensive given the very many security distractions they have, including addressing issues of the Taliban, the very restive north-west frontier province. Do you think though that the Pakistani government is doing enough to address Indian concerns regarding Islamic militants?
WEINBAUM: Well no not really enough, nor are they doing enough to meet American concerns either. But they're walking a fine line here, some of these groups if they really were to vigorously go after them they would find that this would be quite difficult to do. They're quite entrenched in Pakistani society, a group like Lashkar e-Toiba for example, which has been linked to Mumbai, this is a group with branches all over the country and thousands of people who profit because it's also a social welfare organisation. This government is weak and there's just so much it can do. What it is doing is through its military it has taken the offensive up to a point against those who have attacked the state by planting bombs and suicide attacks and so on.
LAM: And Marvin Weinbaum we can't talk about dialogue between India and Pakistan without referring to Kashmir, I mean after all the two countries fought three wars over the region. So what can both sides offer do you think on the Kashmir issue when they put things on the agenda?
WEINBAUM: I don't think that there's anything out there that suggests that they're going to make great progress here. I would put it this way, that to the extent that you can overall improve Indian Pakistan relations, you create the conditions in which there could be some kind of solution for Kashmir. Most people agree it's not going to be a territorial exchange, but would be something that's been referred to as soft boundaries, which would defuse Kashmir as an issue between the two countries. But in a way rather than that being what would trigger better relations overall better relations will create as I say the conditions in which we might see that issue sometime in the future go into the background.
LAM: And just briefly what about the question of Afghanistan, do you think Pakistan might be a little bit unsettled by the fact that India is investing heavily in Afghanistan?
WEINBAUM: They are, this is the thing that they point to all the time is to why they need a favourable outcome for Pakistan there because I think to some extent in a paranoid way they see India as angling here to create a security concern for them on their other border, the North West Frontier border, and they are very concerned about this. They exaggerate I believe the extent to which this poses a threat but again it fits in with this renewed nationalism, and to the extent that they don't go after some of their Jihadi groups, India of course is more welcome in Afghanistan as a counter-balance to Pakistan.
