The Agra nightmare’s over. And so’s the 18-month-long deadlock spawned by the terrorist attack on Parliament. Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali called up Prime Minister Vajpayee this evening, and for 10 long minutes both leaders spoke of ways to rescue their nations from a fate worse than silence. Exactly 10 days after Vajpayee rolled the dice again at Srinagar — for the third time in five years — and then followed up his offer of talks in Parliament, India and Pakistan have decided to once again pick up the thread of dialogue. Jamali, with Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar sitting by his side in Islamabad, picked up the phone at 8 pm and called Vajpayee. Islamabad had sent a message earlier in the day that he would like to speak to the PM and express his ‘‘appreciation’’ to his offer of talks. ‘‘Good Evening, Mr Prime Minister,’’ Vajpayee said in English. ‘‘Adaab,’’ Jamali is said to have responded in Urdu. For the next 10 minutes, the conversation, largely conducted in Hindustani, revolved around the importance of looking ahead. Jamali condemned terrorism in general terms — ‘‘Terrorism in all forms should be condemned’’ — but did not refer to cross-border infiltration. The K-word — Kashmir — did not figure in the conversation at all. (PTI quoted Pakistan TV as reporting that Jamali invited Vajpayee to visit Pakistan at his convenience and expressed readiness to visit India to further the peace process). In response to Jamali’s appreciative remarks, the PM suggested that both nations look at strengthening issues like economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, people-to-people contact and civil aviation links. Official sources said the PM stressed the factor of economic exchanges, on the lines of his offer in October last year to Pakistan, that such cooperation even in the SAARC context was the ‘‘way out’’ of the India-Pakistan imbroglio. Jamali is believed to have suggested the addition of sporting links to the bilateral calendar of events. Sources on both sides of the border felt ‘‘the next step’’ would likely be the revival of air links, following which India and Pakistan could either send a senior official to set the agenda for talks or restore High Commissioners to their respective missions. Other people-to-people contacts would follow, including the revival of bus and train links. It is learnt that Harsh Bhasin, informally designated High Commissioner to Pakistan last year, has been posted to Denmark following the return of H K Dua to journalism. Under the circumstances, both New Delhi and Islamabad will have to post new High Commissioners to the other country. Sources from Islamabad stressed that Jamali’s telephone call tonight is indicative of the decision in ‘‘the system’’ that Pakistan will respond ‘‘positively’’ to Vajpayee’s statements in Srinagar and in Parliament. The sources said that General Musharraf had told a group of senior Pakistani editors only four days ago that if talks were to finally begin between India and Pakistan, ‘‘victory would be neither mine nor Prime Minister Vajpayee’s. It would be the victory of negotiation and dialogue,’’ he said. The sources stressed that the recent massacre at Nadimarg, where innocent adults and children had been brutally killed, had quite shaken public opinion in Pakistan. ‘‘It is time to end this bloody ugliness of people being killed,’’ the sources said, adding that Islamabad hoped that New Delhi would ‘‘reject’’ the message of the Lashkar and the Jaish-e-Mohammed and accept Prime Minister Jamali’s offer at full value. At the end of the day, neither side was willing to discuss the mechanism or processes to revive dialogue. The sources pointed out that the framework for a dialogue process, including the revival of confidence-building measures, had been ready and waiting for a while. These included a discussion about Kashmir as well as terrorism, to be followed by talks across the spectrum on issues ranging from Siachen to people-to-people contacts. Jamali’s offer this evening comes barely a week before the US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage arrives in Islamabad, to see for himself whether General Musharraf has kept to his promise of ending cross-border infiltration into India. The sources said they hoped Pakistan would reiterate its intention to curb terrorism during Armitage’s visit, following which New Delhi would make good on the PM’s offer to restart the agenda for talks.
