How cynical is this?

Pakistan8217;s ruling elite has just demonstrated its lack of sensitivity and good taste in the official counter-proposals it has profferred in response to India8217;s initiatives for furthering peace in the region. For instance, in a bid to counter India8217;s offer to treat 20 more Pakistani children, it made a similar gesture, while adding that it would also help women from J038;K who have been widowed or raped by the Indian army. This is rich, indeed, coming as it does from a nation where the law is loaded against victims of rape.

Then Pakistan8217;s foreign secretary, Riaz Khokhar, after reportedly welcoming the Indian proposal to start a direct bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, rapidly descended from the sublime to the ridiculous by bringing the UN into it. One wonders whether Pakistani rulers have become unaware of the role and charter of the UN or are they indulging in self-defeating one-upmanship. Even a child knows that immigration duties are not part of the UN8217;s responsibilities. And if Pakistan wants to treat J038;K as a dispute, then it must start by accepting that the dispute really is about Pakistan8217;s continuing presence and prosecution of jihadi violence inside the state that legally and constitutionally acceded to India 56 years ago. The Line of Control, after all, is a temporary arrangement, and immigration formalities, logically, would have to be carried out at the old Punjab-Kashmir border west of Muzaffarabad. Then again, while it signals its willingness to issue visas virtually where the applicants are, it wishes to delay the opening and expansion of travel facilities for them. Even if a person in Sindh finally gets a visa in his home town, without the re-opening of the Sindh-Rajasthan road-rail link proposed by India, he may still have to travel via Wagah 400 kilometres north before travelling a similar distance south to reach his destination just across the border. This sort of trivialisation of its own foreign policy hardly does Pakistan and its diplomats any credit.

Any objective reading of the Indian proposals would show that, if accepted by both sides and implemented sincerely, they would help the people of both countries. This could open doors for further forward movement. But by creating roadblocks on the path to the acceptance of these proposals, Islamabad is doing itself and the region a great disservice. What is needed is for both countries to adopt a more responsible relationship with each other. India can either choose to be deterred by such cynicism, or carry on with its agenda to change the security scenario of the region. We would urge the latter approach.