Manmohan, Musharraf gear up for D-day

Arindam Sen Gupta / TNN / Sep 15, 2006, 01:48 IST

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The meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the summit at the International Convention Centre here is not expected to be an exercise in tokenism.

HAVANA: Even as Air India One carrying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was circling above the Jose Marti International Airport here, there was a hum of excitement in the aircraft. Not for the two-day NAM Summit beginning on Friday — nonalignment is passe — but on the scheduled meeting between the Indian premier and Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf.
The meeting between the two leaders, tentatively scheduled for Friday afternoon, on the sidelines of the summit at the International Convention Centre here is not expected to be an exercise in tokenism.
That on the eve of their meeting, both the leaders have been singing from the same peace hymn sheet has not gone unnoticed. They haven't rattled their sabres; appearing pictures of sweet reasonableness.
While Singh struck the friendly note by stating that Pakistan was also a victim of terrorism, Musharraf immediately reacted in Brussels describing the Indian PM as "flexible and sincere". He added, "I feel very comfortable interacting with him."

Musharraf went on to concede for the first time that improvement in Indo-Pak ties were taking place on two tracks, Confidence Building Measures (CBMs), such as the bus between the two Kashmirs and people-to-people contacts, and conflict resolution on Kashmir. Until now, he was describing CBMs as "distractions"that whittled the focus on the ‘core issue' of Kashmir.
Quite clearly, the two leaders were breaking new ground. India has maintained so far that groups like LeT and Jaish were getting succour from the ISI, an arm of the Pakistan establishment.

By saying so, it had maintained that the Pakistan government was not free of guilt in terror acts in India. On Monday, however, Singh said that these groups had acquired some autonomy and the Pakistan government, too, was feeling their heat.
The positive strokes by the two leaders on the eve of their meeting are somewhat unexpected, especially coming as they do within two months of the Mumbai blasts that killed nearly 200 and left India angrily pointing an accusatory finger at Islamabad.
The change of track appears all the more significant because it comes despite India's concern over Pakistan's recent pact with the Taliban over Waziristan. Officials feel that the development will enable Pakistan to re-establish its hold over southern Afghan- istan.
Agitated foreign ministry officials are learnt to have taken up the matter with their American counterparts. Publicly, however, government has let the development go by with a muted comment, perhaps because it is loath to scupper the pitch for the talks in Havana.
What is equally conspicuous is that the US has also acquiesced at the Pakistan-Taliban agreement despite full-throated warning by its security think-tanks that it was fraught with serious implications for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in short, their man in Kabul.
The credentials as practitioner of ambush diplomacy should justify certain wariness of the man among all his interlocutors.
In the present context, India is not amused by Pakistani President's assertions about the ball being in the court — a formulation designed to put the onus for improvement on bilateral ties on Singh's shoulders (read concessions on J&K).
Read it along with his praise of the PM for "flexibility and sincerity", and it is enough to remind Manmohan Singh government of the mind- games Musharraf is adept at playing to have his way.

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