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Journalism of Courage
Agreement on a date for the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan to meet comes almost as an anticlimax to the booming guns on the border and the political crosstalk in the two capitals over the last couple of weeks. Nevertheless there is much at stake on June 12 and expectations will be high when Jaswant Singh and Sartaj Aziz get to grips with Kargil. As extraordinary as it might seem for Indian and Pakistani leaders to be talking in the midst of a border war, it has come about because, at root, both governments recognise their responsibilities to contain and wind down the conflict in the interests of the two countries. Beyond that there is a wide chasm. India8217;s objective in the dialogue, as the Vajpayee government has made abundantly clear in the last few days, is to confirm how Pakistani aggression will be vacated. Aziz, according to what was said in Islamabad, has a more open-ended agenda and is looking to 8220;defuse tension8221;.
Islamabad knows all the options it might have hoped to explore in thedialogue with India have been foreclosed. The Vajpayee government has said it will not offer a ceasefire, renegotiate the LoC or allow the Pakistan government to dodge its responsibility for the incursions. There is one point to be discussed and one only, the vacation of aggression. That Nawaz Sharif has agreed to send Aziz to New Delhi is significant. He is under pressure to show the world that he is committed to the diplomatic process. It is becoming clearer by the day that India8217;s position on the conflict is accepted as correct by the major powers. US and Russian spokespersons have gone further than the anodyne formula of calling on both sides to observe restraint and are specifically asking Pakistan to respect the Line of Control. Bruce Riedel, senior adviser to President Bill Clinton has said infiltrators from the Pakistani side of the LoC must go back. Russia8217;s deputy foreign minister told Pakistan8217;s ambassador in Moscow that Pakistan must pull back the armed infiltrators.
