Her first statement was that perhaps it was wrong on the part of India to stop talking to Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai attack; her second statement said that Pakistan’s attitude had changed towards terrorism and therefore there were better prospects for an India-Pakistan normalisation these days, represented by uninterrupted bilateral talks on outstanding issues.
There was undue triumphalism in the Pakistani press on Ms Rao’s owning up to India’s mistake in her first statement. The correct reaction would have been to say that her statement had improved the outlook for a better regional security environment. There is no doubt that there is international pressure on both India and Pakistan to start talking. Furthermore, signals are also being given to India to abandon its policy of linking all progress in talks to the resolution of the Mumbai attack case in Pakistan against several Lashkar-e-Taiba members. It was wrong to interpret Ms Rao’s observation as a kind of Indian admission of defeat.
Ms Rao is talking frankly because she has come to the end of her tenure as secretary for external affairs of India. She may want to improve her prospects as Indian ambassador to the United States where she might be called upon to look at Pakistan more realistically than she was at New Delhi, responding to public rage in the post-Mumbai days. It is also possible that privately she preferred a softer approach to Pakistan as foreign secretary than the consensus inside the Indian establishment allowed. We know that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh definitely wanted a similar approach to Pakistan, meaning that Ms Rao was not alone in her views. Full Article >>>
Location:Islamabad
