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K Sera Sera? Pakistan just can't let go of Kashmir issue - The Times of India
WASHINGTON: For months now, the Obama administration, from the president down to panjandrums, have dinned the same message into the Pakistani leadership: get over your obsession with India; the danger to Pakistan comes from within. Each time, the Pakistani response has been the same: No, we can't.
So it was this week too as Washington mounted yet another concerted effort to persuade Pakistan to address its internal crises in course of a three-day "strategic dialogue," throwing another couple of billion dollars at an "ally" that has sucked up more than $ 20 billion since 9/11 while raging against Washington. But at the end of the engagement, Pakistan's litany of India-related grievances and demands remained undiminished: A nuclear deal on par with the one with India (not met), US presidential visit to match India's (partly met), more arms and money (being considered), and of course, the Kashmir issue.
In a drive evidently driven by Pakistan's domineering military-security establishment, represented at the Washington talks by Army chief Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi boldly pitched for US mediation into its vexing dispute with India, going as far as to challenge President Obama that "his coming visit to the region is the time to begin to redeem the pledge that he made earlier" of a US role in the Kashmir issue.
Although President Obama made no explicit pledge regarding Kashmir, Qureshi appeared to be referring to reports during the presidential campaign when Obama remarked that "working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way" would be one of the "critical tasks" for his administration and mulled about a US special envoy on the issue (President Clinton's name was mentioned in this context).
But since assuming office, Obama had dialed down on the issue. He and any number of high-ranking US officials have reverted to the familiar American position that the issue is bilateral and best resolved in that context, evidently realizing that Kashmir is just a pretext for Pakistan's military-security establishment to continue its confrontation with India and extend its hold on the country.
On Friday, it was the turn of US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, in whose portfolio Islamabad would like Kashmir to be added. "We will be happy to be of help, if both sides want us to be. But we are not going to unilaterally put ourselves in the position of intermediation on issues in which our presence, our direct involvement, if not desired by both sides, would work against that objective," Holbrooke told PBS News Hour.
"We are not going to put ourselves, without invitation, into a position of intermediation in a position -- in an issue of such extraordinary and historic sensitivity," he added, while other state department spokesmen pretty much toed the same line.
So why does Pakistan keep raising issues like Kashmir and nuclear deal despite multiple rebuffs? Qureshi is believed to have told some journalists that the idea was to keep at it so the issue remains front and center. "Things we've tried in the past, it hasn't worked. That doesn't mean we give up. We are persistent. And as they say: Perseverance commands success. So I am not giving up," he was quoted as saying.
The word from the Pakistani side is President Obama directly sought to press Army Chief Kayani to give his confrontational posture. But Kayani is said to have stood his ground that he saw India as the principle threat to Pakistan.
At Friday's state department finale to the talks, Qureshi, seen as fronting for the all-powerful Pak military, invoked the current unrest in Jammu and Kashmir to pitch Pakistan's case. "People of conscience have protested the use of force against the defenseless people of Kashmir, in particular targeting of the Kashmiri youth, which has claimed over hundred lives in the past three months," he said. "But the Kashmiri mothers are baffled at the deafening silence of the world leadership."
The argument, which comes at a time when Karachi's sectarian killing are taking move lives and parts of Pakistan are out of Islamabad's control, fell on deaf ears at Clinton's state department, which has officials of Kashmiri origin on the rolls. The US-Pakistan joint statement issued at the end of the dialogue did not mention Kashmir, but said the two countries "renewed their resolve to promoting peace, stability, and transparency throughout the region and to eliminate the threats posed by terrorism and extremism."
Read more: K Sera Sera? Pakistan just can't let go of Kashmir issue - The Times of India K Sera Sera? Pakistan just can't let go of Kashmir issue - The Times of India
WASHINGTON: For months now, the Obama administration, from the president down to panjandrums, have dinned the same message into the Pakistani leadership: get over your obsession with India; the danger to Pakistan comes from within. Each time, the Pakistani response has been the same: No, we can't.
So it was this week too as Washington mounted yet another concerted effort to persuade Pakistan to address its internal crises in course of a three-day "strategic dialogue," throwing another couple of billion dollars at an "ally" that has sucked up more than $ 20 billion since 9/11 while raging against Washington. But at the end of the engagement, Pakistan's litany of India-related grievances and demands remained undiminished: A nuclear deal on par with the one with India (not met), US presidential visit to match India's (partly met), more arms and money (being considered), and of course, the Kashmir issue.
In a drive evidently driven by Pakistan's domineering military-security establishment, represented at the Washington talks by Army chief Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi boldly pitched for US mediation into its vexing dispute with India, going as far as to challenge President Obama that "his coming visit to the region is the time to begin to redeem the pledge that he made earlier" of a US role in the Kashmir issue.
Although President Obama made no explicit pledge regarding Kashmir, Qureshi appeared to be referring to reports during the presidential campaign when Obama remarked that "working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way" would be one of the "critical tasks" for his administration and mulled about a US special envoy on the issue (President Clinton's name was mentioned in this context).
But since assuming office, Obama had dialed down on the issue. He and any number of high-ranking US officials have reverted to the familiar American position that the issue is bilateral and best resolved in that context, evidently realizing that Kashmir is just a pretext for Pakistan's military-security establishment to continue its confrontation with India and extend its hold on the country.
On Friday, it was the turn of US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, in whose portfolio Islamabad would like Kashmir to be added. "We will be happy to be of help, if both sides want us to be. But we are not going to unilaterally put ourselves in the position of intermediation on issues in which our presence, our direct involvement, if not desired by both sides, would work against that objective," Holbrooke told PBS News Hour.
"We are not going to put ourselves, without invitation, into a position of intermediation in a position -- in an issue of such extraordinary and historic sensitivity," he added, while other state department spokesmen pretty much toed the same line.
So why does Pakistan keep raising issues like Kashmir and nuclear deal despite multiple rebuffs? Qureshi is believed to have told some journalists that the idea was to keep at it so the issue remains front and center. "Things we've tried in the past, it hasn't worked. That doesn't mean we give up. We are persistent. And as they say: Perseverance commands success. So I am not giving up," he was quoted as saying.
The word from the Pakistani side is President Obama directly sought to press Army Chief Kayani to give his confrontational posture. But Kayani is said to have stood his ground that he saw India as the principle threat to Pakistan.
At Friday's state department finale to the talks, Qureshi, seen as fronting for the all-powerful Pak military, invoked the current unrest in Jammu and Kashmir to pitch Pakistan's case. "People of conscience have protested the use of force against the defenseless people of Kashmir, in particular targeting of the Kashmiri youth, which has claimed over hundred lives in the past three months," he said. "But the Kashmiri mothers are baffled at the deafening silence of the world leadership."
The argument, which comes at a time when Karachi's sectarian killing are taking move lives and parts of Pakistan are out of Islamabad's control, fell on deaf ears at Clinton's state department, which has officials of Kashmiri origin on the rolls. The US-Pakistan joint statement issued at the end of the dialogue did not mention Kashmir, but said the two countries "renewed their resolve to promoting peace, stability, and transparency throughout the region and to eliminate the threats posed by terrorism and extremism."
Read more: K Sera Sera? Pakistan just can't let go of Kashmir issue - The Times of India K Sera Sera? Pakistan just can't let go of Kashmir issue - The Times of India
