Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Wednesday told Pakistan that bilateral talks between the two countries would collapse “unless the government of Pakistan clearly deals with the issue of terrorism”. He said that the resumption of the stalled composite dialogue process next month depended on Pakistan’s dealing with the terrorism issue that “troubles India the most”. “We have put Pakistan on notice that any democratic government of India would find it difficult to continue on the present path (of dialogue) to address all outstanding issues unless the government of Pakistan clearly deals with the issue of terrorism,” Singh told a weeklong conference of Indian Armed Forces’ commanders that concluded here on Wednesday.
He said that the institutional joint anti-terrorism mechanism agreed by him and President Pervez Musharraf at talks in Havana “will be a test of Pakistani intentions and capabilities to implement the assurances that they have given us since January 2004”.
Singh said that “our enemies” were using Bangladeshi migrants to incite terrorism in India. “The economic pull on migrants from Bangladesh of the Indian market offers opportunities to our enemies who seek to incite terrorism in India,” he said.
Singh urged the conference to accommodate India’s neighbours and give them greater stakes in India’s economic prosperity. “Essential to our quest for a modern India true to its genius is a peaceful and prosperous periphery. I have often said that the countries of South Asia have a shared destiny. We can, to an extent, help create such thinking by giving our neighbours a greater stake in our economic prosperity. We must be willing to make necessary adjustments in our domestic policies to accommodate this,” he said.
The Indian prime minister talked of a “dangerous and unstable neighbourhood” and uneven development and its consequences and stressed that “political stability and a focus on human development in the region are in our strategic interest”. He said that the commanders should think of both conventional and anti-terrorism wars. “Terrorists are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the way they deal with death and destruction. Our armed forces also have to deal with insurgents in difficult terrain. There is, thus, a necessity for us to upgrade our capabilities, which have traditionally been geared towards conventional threats, as well as our surveillance and interdiction systems,” he said.
Singh said that technology had empowered non-state actors to the point where terrorism was a major trans-border threat in many countries and the commanders should include in their strategy a “transformed security challenge that now include anarchistic ideologies, communalism of various kinds, threats from pandemics and terrorism over and above conventional threats”. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and chiefs of all three forces were also present.