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Having won the diplomatic war, India now looks to win the peace

The post-nuclear bilateral flare-up between India and Pakistan is all set to culminate in a series of peace and security talks between the two countries, following the mild resolution of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in Geneva on Thursday.

Analysts say India has won a crucial test of diplomacy, as the designs of the United States and China to internationalise the Kashmir issue at the Geneva meeting did not turn out be a great success.

Kashmir did figure in the communique of the P-5 members -- the US, Russia, France, Britain and China -- but there was no proposal for third-party mediation between India and Pakistan to resolve the five-decade-old dispute.

"The P-5 members did not try to browbeat or arm-twist India. That is a good sign. But now is the time to resume the peace dialogue between India and Pakistan. And I hope the countries are left with no other option but to talk to each other," former foreign secretary Eric Gonsalves told Rediff On The NeT.

Diplomatic experts like him believe that the aggressive US stand on India considerably mellowed down in Geneva probably because India had impressed Russia and France with the country's security concerns.

While Russia argued that international sanctions against India and Pakistan because of their nuclear tests would only backfire, France recommended some form of enhancement of the international status of the South Asian countries.

Official sources said the Bharatiya Janata Party government did enough 'diplomatic groundwork' to ensure that France and Russia did not agree with the US to threaten India and Pakistan with more sanctions and third-party mediation on Kashmir.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had sent his principal secretary, Brajesh Mishra, to Paris earlier this week to convey India's security concerns to French President Jacques Chirac. Similarly, post-Pokhran, the Vajpayee government also undertook a damage control exercise to impress Moscow and the Islamic world with India's viewpoint.

Official sources disclosed that the P-5 resolution has left a lot of room for negotiation between India and Pakistan, especially because "the statement did not mention international mediation on Kashmir".

The P-5 -- which has been billed as an international bid to reduce nuclear tension between India and Pakistan -- also did not issue any direct call to the countries to sign the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.

"The ball is now in the courts of India and Pakistan to re-open a direct dialogue to try to find a solution to the vexed Kashmir issue," another former foreign secretary J N Dixit told Rediff On The NeT.

"It is true that the P-5 members have rejected the claims of India and Pakistan to be in the exclusive nuclear club. But that is of no issue now. The real issue is how and when both countries sit at the negotiation table and stop a nuclear arms race in the region," he said.

Officials refused to comment on when the secretary level talks between India and Pakistan would commence, but hinted that now that both the countries have demonstrated their nuclear capabilities, "the bilateral talks will happen sooner than later."

Vajpayee has already offered to talk with Pakistan on all outstanding issues like peace, security and Kashmir. He said the two countries had identified subjects for discussions and India had given Pakistan in Dhaka in January its suggestions for the modalities of the dialogue.

Though India and Pakistan resumed foreign secretary level talks in March 1997 after a break of more than three years, it broke down in October on the issue of setting up a joint working group to examine the Kashmir issue.

Now that both countries have exercised their nuclear options and come under international economic sanctions, diplomatic experts believe a new date for a peace dialogue necessarily involving Kashmir will be agreed upon between the countries soon.

Following the Geneva meeting, the Vajpayee government is planning to initiate a number of confidence-building measures including a voluntary moratorium on further tests, participation in negotiations on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and discussions on a no-first-use bilateral agreement with Pakistan.

There is also a set of issues relating to global nuclear disarmament which India is willing to discuss with the nuclear weapon states and other nations. India has argued that these issues can not be placed in an exhaustive South Asian context.

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