Ice Age diplomacy

There was no attempt to meet each other half way, even on issues that would have helped immeasurably in clearing the air without in any way jeopardising either country’s strategic interests. For instance, while discussing the Sir Creek issue, whichin any case needs to be resolved under the UN Law of the Sea by the year 2004, both sides are reported to have spent three hours expounding on the finer points of cartography.

That session, as did every other, including those on such crucial issues as Siachen, ended with both sides agreeing to disagree. Little wonder then that after eight days of diplomatic hair-splitting and shilly-shallying, the people of both countries were totally at sea, wondering where their respective navigators were taking them. In circles, it now appears in retrospect.

For Pakistan, predictably enough, every issue, even one as innocuous as the transportation of onions across the border, was ingeniously linked to Kashmir and the need for third party intervention to solve the dispute involving that state. India, in response, spent most of its energies condemning such a proposal.

Both countries displayed a mindset that seems to have been carefully preserved these 50 years in formaldehyde. So involved are the babus in both nationsin their cat-and-mouse encounter that they perhaps may not have noticed that the rest of the world has moved on. That the rest of the world today speaks a pragmatic new language that has less to do with yesterday’s fears and more to do with tomorrow’s hopes.

Today, the US talks trade and friendship with a country that it could very well have labelled “potential enemy number one”. Israel and Palestine are now prepared to thrash out their differences as two mature entities. There are even significant peace moves in that intransigent region known as the Balkans.

So how about some new foreign policy formulations in this region of the globe? How about shifting from the decades-old trench warfare masquerading as diplomacy? How about some bold attempts at calling the other’s bluff in this game that has no winners? The only hope that last week’s Composite Dialogue held out was the willingness of both India and Pakistan to continue to talk to each other. So how about some action too?