Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
10NEWDELHI387
2010-02-26 14:09:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy New Delhi
Cable title:  

MORE ON FEB 25 INDO-PAK TALKS: "NO BREAKDOWN BUT

Tags:  PREL PTER IN PK AF 
pdf how-to read a cable
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 000387 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2020
TAGS: PREL PTER IN PK AF
SUBJECT: MORE ON FEB 25 INDO-PAK TALKS: "NO BREAKDOWN BUT
NO BREAKTHROUGH"

REF: NEW DELHI 358

Classified By: Political Counselor Uzra Zeya. Reason: 1.4 (b,d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 000387

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2020
TAGS: PREL PTER IN PK AF
SUBJECT: MORE ON FEB 25 INDO-PAK TALKS: "NO BREAKDOWN BUT
NO BREAKTHROUGH"

REF: NEW DELHI 358

Classified By: Political Counselor Uzra Zeya. Reason: 1.4 (b,d).


1. (U) Summary: Foreign Minister Nirupama Rao told the
Ambassador on February 26 that February 25 talks with her
Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir were a "good first step"
but that further Pakistani progress on terrorism is needed
before the GOI will commit to further talks. Rao described
the February 26 terrorist attack in Kabul that killed four
GOI personnel as a complicating factor. She cautioned that
Pakistan may try to leverage a resumption of the Composite
Dialogue, adding that India is not ready for this and wants
to first "lighten things up" through modest steps on
humanitarian issues. The Pakistan Embassy Political
Counselor told us the talks produced "no breakdown but no
breakthrough" and that the GOI had rebuffed Pakistan's
proposal to "pick up the threads of the eight Composite
Dialogue topics where we had left off" at a senior level with
a counter-proposal to hold discussion of such topics at a
"lower level." PM Singh and his Pakistani counterpart agreed
last July in Sharm al-Sheikh that their respective Foreign
Secretaries and Foreign Ministers would meet periodically to
discuss a full range of issues, and the February 25 meeting
in New Delhi can be viewed as a cautious step in reactivating
this process. While momentum for further talks could be
stymied by any number of factors, we think it likely that
Foreign Secretary Rao will visit Islamabad at some point in
the coming months to explore whether the two countries can,
as she put it, "build an environment of trust and
confidence." End Summary.

FS Rao: Good Start, But Building Trust Takes Time
-------------- --------------


2. (C) Providing a read-out of talks to the Ambassador on
February 26, Rao admitted the GOI had deliberately lowered
public expectations in the run-up to the talks because it
sensed the Pakistanis would arrive with a narrow agenda and
it "would be a bushel full of thorns." The Ambassador
congratulated Rao for a successful round of talks and
stressed high-level USG support for dialogue. Rao repeatedly
characterized the talks as a "good first step" and "a good

start," adding that the GOI had "opened a window." Among
other topics, the parties discussed "small measures" and
humanitarian issues such as travel, transit, and bus
transportation across the Line of Control. She said they
also talked about possible visits to India by the Pakistani
Elections Commissioner and railways officials. She cautioned
that Islamabad may try to link all of these topics to
resumption of the Composite Dialogue, but the GOI is not
ready for such resumption and wishes to first "lighten things
up" through modest steps on humanitarian issues.


3. (C) She reported that Foreign Minister Krishna had also
stressed patience in slowly moving the process forward in his
February 26 meeting with the Bashir delegation. In that
meeting, she said the Pakistanis stressed their appreciation
of PM Singh's commitment to peace. She said the Pakistanis
had raised but did not dwell on Kashmir and water issues
during their February 25 meeting with NSA Menon. In reply to
the Ambassador's question of political support for PM Singh's
initiative to resume talks, she said he currently enjoys
solid Congress party backing but faces certain criticism from
the BJP.


4. (C) In answer to the Ambassador's question about whether
she would accept Bashir's offer of future talks in Islamabad,
Rao responded that the GOI needs to see more progress from
Pakistan on terrorism issues. Pressed for more details on
what progress is needed, she mentioned the fatal February 26
attack on Indians in Kabul which killed four GOI personnel
and left some seven Indians missing and noted that the
perpetrators could be from among "the usual suspects" of
Pakistani jihadis, the LeT, or the Taliban. Rao noted that,
with the deaths in Kabul, today was "a very bad day for the
GOI," and Indian public opinion remained "inflamed" regarding
Pakistan-linked terror against India. Stating that the two
sides need to continue to build trust and confidence, she

NEW DELHI 00000387 002 OF 003


said Pakistan needs to "show a commitment" to prosecuting
Mumbai suspects. She confided that the GOI is concerned that
the Pakistani position is "hardening." In a possible
reference to FM Qureshi, Rao added that Pakistan officials
also need to tone down unhelpful public statements. She said
the GOI does not want the bilateral achievements of 2004-07
to be diluted.

Pakistan Embassy View
--------------


5. (C) Pakistani Embassy Political Counselor Zulfiqar Gardezi
told us February 26 that the Pakistani delegation returned to
Islamabad with the feeling that the talks did not produce
either "a breakdown or breakthrough" in Indo-Pak relations.
Gardezi, who was present for most of the Rao - Bashir
meetings, stated that Pakistan's main point was to stress the
importance of resuming the Composite Dialogue "and picking up
the threads of the eight Composite Dialogue topics where we
had left off" prior to the suspension of Dialogue meetings
after the November 2008 Mumbai attack. Gardezi reported the
GOI responded that India is not ready for resumption of the
Composite Dialogue, and certainly not at a senior level:
according to Gardezi, the Indians indicated that they might
be amenable to future discussion of Composite Dialogue issues
at a "lower level" (a gambit that, according to some press
accounts, was rebuffed by the Pakistanis).


6. (C) Gardezi said Bashir raised Kashmir, water issues, and
Baluchistan as major issues of Pakistani concern, but
declined to provide details of the GOI response. When asked
about Pakistani reaction to the GOI's apparent singular focus
on terror-related issues, Gardezi asserted that Pakistan has
"no problem" talking about terrorism with India, adding that
"we have a few terrorism issues of our own that we want to
raise with India." He noted that when Bashir met with Indian
NSA Menon late February 25 afternoon, the tenor of discussion
was similar to that of the Rao meeting. Gardezi
characterized the Krishna meeting as a "courtesy call."


7. (C) Gardezi emphasized that the two sides had agreed to
maintain contact, a line repeated by Rao and Bashir in their
separate February 25 press conferences. The Pakistani
diplomat complained that some Indian media coverage of
Bashir's press statement gave a falsely negative spin to some
of his comments (one of our media contacts explained Bashir's
comments as "Bashir saying what he needed to say to keep his
job back home"). Gardezi offered no information on a
delegation dinner reportedly hosted last night by the
Pakistani Ambassador in which Rao is said to have attended,
and reportedly included amiable and conciliatory remarks.


Comment
--------------


8. (C) While there appears to be a lingering media and
chattering-class perception that USG pressure helped bring
about the talks, local commentators seem to have forgotten or
ignored that PM Singh and his Pakistani counterpart agreed
last July in Sharm al-Sheikh that their respective Foreign
Secretaries and Foreign Ministers would meet periodically to
discuss a full range of issues. Five months after the last
Indo-Pak ministerial encounter in New York, the February 25
meeting in New Delhi can be viewed as a cautious reactivation
of the Sharm process. Indian officials did a commendable job
of handling a potentially difficult meeting -- and paving the
way for future meetings -- by adopting an unstructured agenda
which allowed Pakistan to raise issues of concern while the
GOI used statements from Home Minister Chidambaram and Rao to
keep their public messaging focused focus firmly on
terrorism. While momentum for further talks could be stymied
by any number of factors -- first and foremost, a
Pakistani-linked terrorist incident in India or Afghanistan
-- we think it likely that Foreign Secretary Rao will visit
Islamabad at some point in the coming months to explore
whether the two countries can, as she put it, overcome "the
trust deficit" and "build an environment of trust and
confidence" through "a graduated step-by-step process."

NEW DELHI 00000387 003 OF 003


ROEMER