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| Pakistan And India Agree to Peace Talks |
| 2004-02-19 |
| Indian and Pakistani officials agreed Wednesday to a "basic road map" for peace negotiations aimed at resolving their historic and often violent differences over Kashmir and other matters. Wrapping up three days of talks, senior diplomats outlined a schedule for parallel negotiations on a range of subjects over the next five months, after which the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers would meet to assess progress and decide on their next steps. Talks on the status of Kashmir will start in May or June, after India holds national elections in April, officials said. Before the two leaders met, Indian officials had resisted reviving direct talks, accusing Pakistan of backing Islamic insurgents in the part of Kashmir that India controls. But the Indians relented after Musharraf agreed to a joint statement pledging that he would "not permit any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism in any manner." The challenge Musharraf faces in fulfilling that pledge was vividly demonstrated Wednesday afternoon, when the former leader of the banned Islamic guerrilla group Lashkar-i-Taiba turned up in the heart of the capital to attend a public memorial service for an Islamic militant killed last month by Indian security forces in Kashmir. "It’s ironic that jihad has been labeled as terrorism and our Pakistani leaders are saying the same things that Western leaders are saying," Hafiz Saeed told the crowd of about 500 men in a park festooned with militant slogans such as "Beat infidels so harshly that they run away." "Pakistani leaders are using their entire machinery to curb jihad, and this is the worst form of state terrorism," continued Saeed, a former engineering professor with a henna-tinted beard who came late to the service in a van with tinted windows. "Jihad in Kashmir will continue at any cost, and Kashmiris will be freed one day." In a telephone interview Wednesday night from London, where he is traveling on official business, Pakistani Interior Minister Faisel Saleh Hayat said Jamaat ul-Dawa had not been banned "because there is no credible substantive evidence that it is indulging in activities against the interest of Pakistan or using Pakistan as a base to harm the interest of people or governments or countries outside" Pakistan. He added, however, that Jamaat ul-Dawa is on Pakistan’s terrorism "watch list" and said he would inquire into the nature of Saeed’s speech to determine whether any laws had been violated. "Obviously jihad in the strict Islamic sense is not violative of the law, but if it promotes violence, then anything in that context does call for the rule of law to come into force," he said. Saeed’s fiery words, in any case, were sharply at odds with the generally upbeat atmosphere surrounding Wednesday’s announcement of a schedule for talks, some of which will begin next month. Indian and Pakistani diplomats used words such as "cordial" and "constructive" to describe this week’s preparatory session, showing just how far the two governments have traveled since their armies faced each other across the border in 2002. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |