Foreign secys to talk anti-terror mechanism on November 26

NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan will resume foreign secretary-level talks on November 13, where the two sides are expected to discuss contours of the proposed anti-terror joint mechanism. The last foreign secretary-level talks between the two were held in January.

The peace process was put on hold after the jehadi attack on Mumbai, after which prime minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf had agreed to restart the process during their meeting in Havana.

According to official sources, India will use the November talks between the two foreign secretaries to assess Pakistan’s willingness to act on the anti-terror promise. The Indian side is expected to formally hand over to the Islamabad team evidence of Pakistan-based terror outfits’ involvement in the Mumbai blasts. Prime minister Manmohan Singh stated in London last week that India will provide Islamabad with hard evidence of Pakistan’s hand in the Mumbai blasts.

Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon has already stated that Pakistan’s sincerity in nailing those who had masterminded the Mumbai blasts would be the real test of Islamabad’s commitment to the proposed Indo-Pak joint mechanism.

On its part, Pakistan has offered to help India to “track down the culprits behind the Mumbai blasts” but ruled out the possibility of handing them over to India unless it has hard evidence against the alleged culprits.

Government sources here admitted that the formalisation of the joint terror mechanism is not an easy task as Islamabad is holding on to its “militants-in-Kashmir-are-freedom-fighters” formulation. Although the US administration has made it clear that such a formulation just does not exist in its political-diplomatic lexicon, Islamabad has been maintaining that its support for the “struggle in Kashmir” would continue.

Given this belligerent approach, many feel that the Indian side cannot afford to be seen as making concessions to Pakistan while working out the anti-terror joint mechanism. In any case, critics have sought to question the efficacy of the proposed collaboration between the ‘victims of terror and the sponsors of terror’. These issues prompted the foreign secretary to say that a formalisation of the anti-terror mechanism would depend on Pakistan’s anti-terror reflexes.

The resuming of foreign secretary-level talks could mean some forward movement on the third round of composite dialoForeign secys to talk anti-terror mechanism on November 26

gue—that includes issues like Jammu and Kashmir, confidence-building measures, the Siachen glacier as well as trade and economic issues.