INDIA CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC AFTER PAKISTAN GENERAL ELECTION

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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 NEW DELHI 000542

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/20/2018

TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PTER, PINR, PBTS, MOPS, KDEM, KISL, PK, IN

SUBJECT: INDIA CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC AFTER PAKISTAN GENERAL

ELECTION

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Classified By: PolCouns Ted Osius for Reasons 1.4 (B, D)

1. (C) SUMMARY: Initial Indian reaction to Pakistan

elections has generally focused on the political pressure

facing President Musharraf in the wake of his party's

defeat, with the GOI maintaining its low-key approach to

events across the border. In the 24 hours following the

election, Indian officials stressed India's desire for

stability in the bilateral relationship. Throughout the

election season, GOI officials have indicated that New

Delhi intends to go about business as usual regardless of

who is in power in Islamabad. Signaling Delhi's desire to

continue the positive trend in the relationship, the GOI

will schedule the fifth round of Composite Dialogue talks

with Pakistan in March, as it pursues several

technical-level dialogues on naval cooperation,

civil-aviation, prisoner exchanges, and improving trade

relations. Indian analysts remain mistrustful of President

Musharraf's intentions towards India, while the GOI points

to a three-year thaw in Indo-Pak relations in the

post-2002, Musharraf dominated era. In pre-election

discussions, no Pakistan observers in India expected

imminent progress in the border disputes in Siachen, Sir

Creek or Kashmir, and warned that any Pakistani success in

quelling its own insurgency in the North-West may increase

terrorist infiltration from Pakistan into India.

Progressive improvements in bilateral economic trade and

people-to-people exchanges are cited in India as the two

most hopeful augurs of positive change between the two

nations. (Septel will report on the Prime Minister and

National Security Advisor's reactions to Pakistani

elections.) END SUMMARY.

INDIA CLOSELY, QUIETLY WATCHES PAKISTAN ELECTIONS

2. (C) News of President Musharraf's PML-Q party's defeat

in national assembly polls has been closely followed in

India, with initial public reaction praising the defeat of

the "King's Party" as a victory for democracy amid varied

speculation on how Musharraf and the new coalition will

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interact. As of mid-day February 20, the GOI had yet to

make any official statement, continuing a policy of

discretion in order to avoid any accusations of

interference in Pakistan's internal affairs. Still,

Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma,

reiterating Delhi's policy of supporting the process over

personalities in Pakistan, responded to news of election

results by saying "Pakistan is our neighbor. We want peace

and stability in the region. India shares a special

relationship with Pakistan." A senior MEA official who

wished to remain anonymous was quoted as saying "Stability

in Pakistan is a must for the entire region. Let us hope

democracy is strengthened in Pakistan." National Security

Advisor M.K. Narayanan told visiting CODEL Biden on

February 20 that Pakistan's stability was crucial for the

region regardless of who runs the government.

3. (C) At a lunch for CODEL Biden, former Indian High

Commissioner to Pakistan G. Parthasarthy stressed the

importance of "breaking the nexus between the Pakistani

army with its corporate interests and the Islamists."

Former Foreign Secretary Maharajakrishna Rasgotra stated

his hope that the victorious parties will not seek to

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humiliate President Musharraf. "The Army won't accept

that," he asserted.

4. (C) Op-ed pieces varied predictably from describing the

election as a victory for Pakistani democracy to warning

that the lack of an overwhelming majority for the

opposition left Musharraf with "maneuvering room" to

maintain his relevance. Other opinion pieces predicted a

coming power struggle between Musharraf and the PPP/PML-N

coalition, and beyond that, internal conflict between Nawaz

Sharif and the Bhutto family, fraught with anxiety about

the possibility of the Pakistani army stepping once more

into the fray to retake power. Several analysts were

comforted that the umbrella party of Islamic fundamentalism

- the MMA - was soundly defeated by the secular Awami

National League (ANL) in the North West Frontier Province

(NWFP),seeing this as a hopeful movement towards peace and

away from fanaticism. But one theme that emerged from

Indian analysts was that no matter who is in power in

Islamabad, New Delhi will have no choice but to deal with

him - or her. In the days leading up to the election,

contacts described steps India expects to take to

positively engage with the new Pakistani government.

PRE-ELECTION INDO-PAK RELATIONS TRENDING POSITIVELY:

5. (C) Pakistan's election comes amidst what Delhi

perceives as a positive trend in relations. Although the

fifth round of Composite Dialogue Talks, the high-level

mechanism for conflict resolution discussions between the

two countries, was originally scheduled for December 2007,

it had to be postponed to a date to be determined as a

result of the state of emergency imposed by President

Musharraf, MEA Deputy Secretary G. Balasubramanian

(Pakistan) told PolOff on February 15. However, he cited

several parallel interactions between the two governments

as evidence that lower-level dialogue was alive and well:

- Pakistan and India wrapped up a two-day bilateral

Civil Aviation conclave in Islamabad on February 15,

resulting in an agreement to increase the number of weekly

flights between their countries from 12 to 28, and adding

Chennai and Islamabad as destinations.

- Accepting an Indian invitation, Pakistan sent a

representative to the New-Delhi hosted Indian Ocean Naval

Symposium (IONS) February 14 - 15. The two-day symposium

gathered naval chiefs of approximately 30 littoral states

of the Indian Ocean, as an Indian initiative to promote

cooperative engagement in the entire region.

- On February 5, the Pakistani and Indian

government-funded and supported defense-analysis think

tanks signed a memorandum of understanding enabling regular

contact. According to press statements made by the Indian

Institute Director Narendra Sisodia, the MOU signed by

Pakistan's Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) and

India's Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis (IDSA)

would "establish direct academic and scholarly ties...and

conduct of joint scholarly conferences, seminars and

round-tables." This new arrangement is intended to include

hosting of each other's scholars and enable open

discussions between experts from both countries on security

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issues, something which in the past has happened only

haphazardly at international fora.

INDIA FORESEES THE BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP CONTINUING TO

IMPROVE

6. (C) Balasubramanian noted to PolOff prior to the

February 18 elections that India and Pakistan will schedule

the next round of talks for the Composite Dialogue sometime

in March, 2008. He added that on February 21-22 New Delhi

will host technical-level bilateral discussions on

expanding passenger bus connections between Indian and

Pakistani cities such as New Delhi and Lahore.

7. (C) Wilson John, Pakistani affairs analyst at the New

Delhi think-tank Observer Research Foundation, told PolOff

February 12 that he sees no concrete political progress on

the horizon with Pakistan regardless of the election's

outcome, especially not on the hotly disputed issues of

Kashmir and Siachen glacier. He speculated that the

current UPA government will not risk looking soft on

Pakistan in an election year, which will preclude New

Delhi from making any concessions or major commitments

within the year. Speculating on the possibility of a new

BJP-led government, John mused that L.K. Advani would

likely rescue Indo-Pak ties from the status quo by

resurrecting the conciliatory initiatives taken by former

NDA Prime Minister Vajpayee in the late '90s.

SKEPTICISM TOWARDS PAKISTANI EXTREMISTS ALIVE AND WELL

8. (C) Dr. Ajay Behera, Pakistan scholar from Jamia Millia

Islamia University, asserted during a lecture on February

12 that Pakistan's internal political structure has become

so unstable under Musharraf's leadership that the next

Pakistani administration will be too preoccupied with

trying to stamp out rebellion and unify the country to

concentrate on its external politics. At the same

lecture, General (retired) Afsir Karim, counter-terrorism

expert and former chief commander of Jammu & Kashmir

troops, underlined that India must remain alert and prepare

its security forces to combat further waves of jihadist

infiltrators and terrorists, which he predicted will enter

India in increasing numbers in the wake of Pakistan's

rapidly deteriorating internal security crises in the FATA

and NWFP. Balasubramanian opined to PolOff that the

security situation in Pakistan "is like a balloon - if the

Pakistani security forces advance on insurgents in the

North-West, those insurgents will instantly pop up

elsewhere - we worry that it will be in Kashmir." India's

former spymaster Vikram Sood wrote in a January 29 op-ed

that it would be nave to accept Musharraf's olive branch

of peace to India as sincere when he "spent his entire

adult life plotting, planning and executing schemes to undo

India, and referred to India as an enemy country in

2006."

"CAUSE FOR CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM"

9. (C) Both Karim and Commodore Uday Bhaskar (Deputy

Director, IDSA) proclaimed at the lecture that the

appearance of grass-roots protests by educated Pakistanis

and lawyers against Musharraf was "cause for cautious

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optimism," and that civilian clamor for reform was and will

continue to be the most hopeful phenomenon taking place in

Pakistan. Wilson John emphasized enhanced people-to-people

contact between the two neighbors as a catalyst for

positive changes in the relationship, citing exchanges of

writers, intellectuals and artists. He singled out

economic trade as another area of potential for increased

cooperation and concrete achievement between Pakistan and

India.

10. (C) Balasubramanian related that the GOI has great

hope for the potential of trade to improve the bilateral

relationship. He noted that, though Islamabad has yet to

reciprocate India's offer of Most Favored (trading) Nation

(MFN) to Pakistan, it has been enlarging its list of

unprotected tariff items, a trend welcomed in

Delhi. Pointing at the success of the bilateral decision

to open, for the first time since Partition, the

Wagah/Attari land-border for truck-borne cargo in October

2007, he divulged that the GOI and the GOP are now

considering implementing an integrated checkpoint system

(ICP) to facilitate movement of cargo containers across

the border. The second area Balasubramanian identified as

having great potential for positive movement in relations

was improving reciprocal consular arrangements between

India and Pakistan. He related that India would host a

meeting of bilateral judicial committees on February 25-27

to continue work on resolving prisoner repatriation

disputes and to facilitate improved access to prisoners.

He was less hopeful on the possibility of progress on

border-dispute issues, but remarked, "irrespective of

election results, India will deal with whatever government

is in place with Pakistan," noting that many working

bilateral mechanisms for dialogue were in place, and that

forward movement on negotiations was "an irreversible

process."

COMMENT: INDIA VIGILANT, CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC

11. (C) COMMENT: The bottom line for the GOI appears to

be a desire to work with the new government to maintain the

stability which has entered the bilateral relationship.

India's public reaction has been generally positive and has

focused on the fact that Pakistan seems to have conducted a

reasonably free and fair election. Many Indians are still

very skeptical of what the future holds for Pakistan,

noting that Musharraf or the army still have the option of

stepping forcefully back into power if they feel threatened

by the winning coalition, or if the coalition itself

dissolves in bitter acrimony. The final year of the UPA

administration is unlikely to witness any risky effort to

forward further rapprochement with Pakistan. India's

posture is certain to be one of extreme caution, and an

overwhelming desire not to cause any problems for

Pakistan's leadership as they work to quell the jihadi

challenges. END COMMENT.

MULFORD

INDIA CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC AFTER PAKISTAN GENERAL ELECTION

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