WASHINGTON: The just-concluded meeting in Islamabad of the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Secretaries has been greeted with little enthusiasm in Washington.
George Pickart who is on the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate observed: The talks were brief inconclusive and appeared to be short on substance. It therefore would be easy to characterize them as a disappointment. It is important to note however that there were very modest expectations. As a practical matter virtually no one believed they would result in anything more than the establishment of a basis for further discussions…the fact that the talks took place at all represents a considerable step forward.
Rep Frank Pallone (Democrat New Jersey) who convened the Congressional Caucus on India some months ago was much more enthusiastic. He welcomed the fact that the Indo Pakistani dialogue has been resumed after an interruption for more than one year and called it encouraging in its own right New Delhi he said had shown that it is prepared to work for confidence building measures and concrete proposals to reduce tensions such as the offer to demilitarize certain border areas. I will be watching Pakistan’s actions closely in the hopes that there will be reciprocal goodwill measures.
He added that there already exists a framework for peaceful solutions to the disagreements between India and Pakistan: the Shimla Agreement of 1972.
A Clinton Administration source who spoke on background remarked that it was totally unrealistic to imagine that there could have been any huge dramatic breakthroughs or eyen to characterize the talks as a failure only because no breakthroughs had occurred Peace-making had to be a ’sustained and serious process he said adding that the nature of the beast is very difficult.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 14, 1994
