Pakistan's official spokesman is reported to have stated that the Simla Agreement as well as the Lahore formula are still a valid basis for dialogue to resolve outstanding issues between the two countries, but that the UN resolutions remain on the table as well. He affirmed that UN resolutions are “valid, legal and operative”. Perhaps he had not familiarised himself with these UN resolutions. The fact is that they had required Pakistan to withdraw its army from J&K before any other step could be taken. The problem why the implementation of UN resolutions could not move forward was that Pakistan never implemented the provisions of those resolutions to withdraw from the state that had legally acceded to India. Obviously the UN recognised India’s sovereignty over the state through those resolutions. And China, even 15 years later, accepted Pakistan’s control over what is Occupied Kashmir as provisional in its treaty of March 1963.At the same time, Pakistan’s willingness to start the dialogue on the basis on the Simla and Lahore agreements is refreshing and welcome. But the problem is that unless there is some credible evidence beyond mere promises that Islamabad is willing to respect the provisions of previous agreements, entering into future dialogue appears meaningless, and could easily become counter-productive. For example, the 1972 Simla Agreement — which incidentally was a precursor to the Helsinki Accords of 1975 — commits both countries to the sanctity of the mutually accepted Line of Control (LoC). Para 4 (ii) specifically states, “Neither side shall seek to alter it (LoC) unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations.” But the terrorism sponsored from across the LoC for the past 15 years is an obvious attempt to alter the line, and the military aggression in the Kargil sector in 1999 was an unabashed violation of that agreement. It also destroyed the harmony that had been achieved at Lahore a few months earlier.So how then do we move forward toward a dialogue that would be meaningful and not another exercise in verbal gymnastics? The past gives us sufficient starting points in Simla and Lahore. But there is a clear need to recognise that a dialogue would be useful only if Pakistan is committed to the idea of such an initiative. There are very real threats to the process, with peace being disturbed on a daily basis by the violence perpetrated from across the frontier. Even the United States and the People’s Republic of China — Pakistan’s long-time allies — acknowledge that cross-border violence must stop and peaceful solutions must be sought through bilateral dialogue.
