Tall talk

It is easy to comprehend Aziz8217;s anxiety to seem more Mujahideen than the Mujahideens at that juncture. He was, after all, shortly to head for home and face the very public demonstrations of anger against the Nawaz Sharif government8217;s undertaking to withdraw from the LoC that the Washington joint statement had enjoined on it.

Aziz8217;s main burden during the course of theinterview was to prove that it was India that was to blame for everything that happened in Kargil 8212; it was India that had over-reacted to the presence of a few Mujahideen there, it was India that had repeatedly breached the LoC, it was India that had expansionist ambitions. Even this, very manifest, anti-India stance is understandable, given Aziz8217;s job description.

But as the foreign minister of a sovereign democratic state, or one that calls itself that, Aziz must know that international credibility cannot be built on half-truths and total falsehoods. On the one hand, he breezily states that the 8220;freedom fighters8221; have a right to 8220;be there8221;, on the other, he assures everyone that 8220;we will use our influence with the freedom fighters8221;. He follows this up with the philosophical observation that there is the distinct possibility that 8220;the freedom fighters may refuse to respond to our persuasion8221;.

By the end of that session with Sebastian, Aziz had threatened the possibility of 8220;ten Kargils8221;;pretended that the LoC was not a properly delineated boundary on the ground; and refused to recognise that there was a time-frame for the withdrawal from Kargil. So what is the world to make of this clutter of observations? Very little, apart from concluding that here indeed is a very slippery customer.

It is this tendency to speak in forked tongues that has jeopardised the Lahore Declaration, which was the closest in two decades that India and Pakistan had come to for ushering in an era of peace in the region. Now that Aziz and his Prime Minister are back in Islamabad, they may find it useful to refer once again to that statement issued on Sunday in Washington.

Among other things it states clearly that the current fighting in the Kargil region is 8220;dangerous and contains the seeds of a wider conflict8221; and that 8220;concrete steps will be taken for the restoration of the line of control in accordance with the Simla Agreement8221;. It also recognises that 8220;the bilateral dialogue begun in Lahore in Februaryprovides the best forum for resolving all issues dividing India and Pakistan, including Kashmir8221;.

Sartaj Aziz may also be gently reminded that it was Pakistan that had signed this document, not India. Therefore, the quicker it keeps the promises made therein, the better.