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PakIstan had over the past two months made successful efforts for mending its ties with Afghanistan." — File Photo
Addressing the Diplomatic Correspondents Association on “Pakistan-India ties – Perspectives and Future”, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said even though he would not like to use the phrase of a game changer, Pakistan would certainly like to “play the role of a game changer as far as our own affairs are concerned, especially in our immediate neighbourhood”.
Although he did not define how the country envisioned its role as a ‘game changer’ in the region, he referred to a changed approach in dealing with problems with neighbours and said Pakistan had made significant progress in ties with India and Afghanistan.
Pakistan had over the past two months made successful efforts for mending its ties with Afghanistan and last weekend Mr Bashir met his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao in the Bhutanese capital on the sidelines of a Saarc meeting, where the two had agreed to revive the peace process, which stands frozen since the Nov 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Mr Bashir said that geographic compulsions were compelling the country to ‘set directions’. He described the resumption of peace talks with India as a ‘significant breakthrough’, but kept the bar low as far as expectations from the renewed process are concerned.
“We are dealing with difficult and complex issues… Lots of patience and determination is required,” he added.
Pakistani and Indian officials will hold a number of meetings to discuss a wide array of issues before a meeting of their foreign secretaries and foreign ministers in July.
Mr Bashir avoided saying that a major breakthrough on Kashmir would be possible in the upcoming engagements even though India had reluctantly agreed to discuss the matter.
But he insisted that Pakistan still considered Kashmir to be the core issue which was critical for boosting the prospects of peace between the two countries.
“We need to approach these things with a great degree of clarity. We should also have clarity in what is doable and what is not doable and what timeframe is doable.”
The foreign secretary hinted that although the new dialogue framework resembled the erstwhile composite dialogue, it did not guarantee that threads would be picked from where the two countries had left in 2008 after the Mumbai attacks.
“I don’t think we should jettison all the good work that was done by predecessors over the past 60 years. We should also not be lost totally in the archives,” he said.
Mr Bashir said Pakistan would approach the renewed engagement with India with an open and constructive frame of mind. He said the two countries would resume the peace process with a ‘new spirit’ and indicated that they would attempt to look for common denominators without compromising on their national interests.
During his about two-hour interactive session with the diplomatic correspondents, Mr Bashir on a number of times called for ownership of the peace process and asked for providing the leadership of the two countries the required political space to deal with some of the contentious issues that have been bedevilling their ties for decades.
There has to be a “political will, a sustained will, which despite the pitfalls could delicately steer the process” towards the ultimate goal of normalisation of bilateral ties, he added
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