Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Sharm-el-Sheikh blunder !!!

The Diplomatic stalemate between India & Pakistan broke in the Egyptian city of Sharm-el-Sheikh, but it wasnt without hiccups and irony. Clearly the meeting of Yekaterinburg showed the world media that how blatant can an Indian prime Minister be,as in-"Islamabad must ensure that its soil is not used for terrorising India."This was welcomed with great appreciation and pride by our country. Ironically,the next meeting which was supposedly arranged to pile up tremendous pressure on Pakistan to hand over the culprits of 26/11 ended with the joint statement seemingly bizzare and unacceptable to Indian Diplomats. It read-"Action on terrorism should not be linked with the composite dialogue process &  these should not be bracketed". This still was acceptable, but one line read"Pakistan has information on threats in Balochistan and other areas".What on Earth is the relevance of this line?and How come it appear in a joint statement?Is their a counter battle going on??"We did this because you do this to us in Balochistan."What is clearly visible is the 26/11 and the alleged involvement of LeT and any other issue must not come in hand till the perpetrators are brought to justice. Then we can sure entertain Balochistan etc. Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon conceded it as a drafting flaw.But errors at this level and in such an issue is unacceptable.  Minister of state for External Affairs Mr. Shashi Tharoor termed it as a diplomatic statement and not a legal paper. I would rather say that it is the written and countersigned text that can be ever debated upon and not mere principles or ideas. For any International advocacy,we can only discuss written statements.

The following is however considered as a great win by the Pakistani Diplomacy and especially for Gilani who had a point to prove. Mr. Manmohan Singh can do nothing but advocate that composite dialogue only after action against terror and blah..blah..blah.But noone can deny that India has certainly lost the driving seat which it had gained in the SCO summit...


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