New Delhi
4 May 2011
India has let it be known that the peace talks with Pakistan will continue as usual, and that the India-Pakistan narrative should be seen divorced from the killing of Osama bin Laden.
"[Osama's killing] does not change the universe of discourse" between India and Pakistan, an official source said, adding that the forthcoming official-level talks could be expected to proceed as per plan.
This newspaper had reported Tuesday that Prime Minister Singh was indeed likely to
stay the course in spite of pressure on him to reappraise his Pakistan initiative. In doing
so he would be guided by the desire not to fritter away the gains made in official and
unofficial (track-two) talks with Islamabad in recent years.
The source defended the government's position by saying that India had to engage
Pakistan in order to make any progress on issues such as trade, people-to-people
contacts, and Jammu and Kashmir.
Adopting a multi-pronged approach, India would look to strengthen the hands of
democratic forces and civil society in Pakistan even as it makes efforts at multilateral
levels to address the issue of terrorism directed against India.
Those efforts would involve proscribing, or naming and shaming, the terrorist groups by
the United Nations security council's "1267 committee", and expediting the process of
adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
On Pakistan foreign secretary Salman Bashir's comment that India's demand for action
against the 26/11 terrorists was "outdated", the source said "that cannot be a serious
statement."
Speaking in Islamabad, Bashir had said Tuesday, "It is a familiar line (and) outdated. It
is some part of the old system repeating itself[.] This line of thinking is mired in a
mindset that is neither realistic nor productive. Such statements are not very helpful [to
the peace process]."
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