Pakistan Army chief General Bajwa backs talks, even as India hangs tough
Sources close to the Pakistani military say New Delhi is missing an opportunity to engage Islamabad in dialogue that would have the full backing of Pakistan’s powerful army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa. The sources say India is under-reading two unambiguously positive signals that Bajwa has choreographed in recent months. Instead, New Delhi, especially the Indian Army, is focusing on tactical aspects like ceasefire violations on the Line of Control (LoC) and infiltration of militants, which have little to do with strategic issues like dialogue resumption.
Restarting dialogue, these sources point out, would automatically calm the LoC and reduce armed militancy in Kashmir.
A senior Pakistani officer with direct knowledge of his army chief’s thinking says: “The Pakistan Army would be willing to re-start negotiations around the so-called Four-Point Formula that was negotiated [between the representatives of former prime minister Manmohan Singh and then president Pervez Musharraf] in 2005-07.”
The Four-Point Formula, which looked beyond both sides’ claims to all of pre-1947 Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), ruled out redrawing borders or amending constitutions. Instead, it sought to make the existing boundary irrelevant by enabling commerce and contacts between Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC.
Across India’s political spectrum, the Four-Point Formula, or a variation of it, might be the only acceptable solution to the Kashmir dispute.
Pakistani signalling
On December 19, Bajwa first signalled that the Pakistan Army did not oppose dialogue with India. Briefing a joint sitting of both houses of Pakistan’s parliament on “national security affairs”, he conveyed the point that he would support any civilian government initiative on opening talks with India.
“You [parliament] will devise all policies including defence and foreign affairs, whereas we [the army] will abide by [the policies],” said Bajwa, according to Pakistani news daily, Dawn, which quoted a parliamentarian who attended the briefing.
Bajwa was accompanied in parliament by a senior team of generals, signalling the army’s resolve to crack down on terrorist groups. These included the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lieutenant General Naveed Mukhtar; the army’s public relations chief, Major General Asif Ghafoor; and military operations chief, Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, who gave a detailed briefing on the anti-terror Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad (End of Discord) launched
last February.
While the focus was on “anti-Pakistan” groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), with little emphasis on “strategic assets” like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) that function as deniable instruments of the Pakistan Army, Bajwa had backed the arrest of LeT chief, Hafiz Saeed, last January and his detention until a court-ordered release in November.
It is rare for Pakistan’s army chief to report to the elected legislature. The last time it happened was in 2011, when General Ashfaq Kayani and his ISI chief, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha, briefed parliament on the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad by US Special Forces who humiliatingly penetrated deep into Pakistani territory to carry out a unilateral operation.
Pakistani sources say Bajwa’s visit to parliament was also intended to telegraph the message that the confrontation with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML(N), was over with the ouster of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in July after the Supreme Court banned him from holding public office for life. Bajwa was signalling that the army fully backed Sharif’s successor, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, and that civil-military relations were again on an even keel.
Continues in original source
http://wap.business-standard.com/ar...ialogue-india-hangs-tough-118012700822_1.html
Sources close to the Pakistani military say New Delhi is missing an opportunity to engage Islamabad in dialogue that would have the full backing of Pakistan’s powerful army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa. The sources say India is under-reading two unambiguously positive signals that Bajwa has choreographed in recent months. Instead, New Delhi, especially the Indian Army, is focusing on tactical aspects like ceasefire violations on the Line of Control (LoC) and infiltration of militants, which have little to do with strategic issues like dialogue resumption.
Restarting dialogue, these sources point out, would automatically calm the LoC and reduce armed militancy in Kashmir.
A senior Pakistani officer with direct knowledge of his army chief’s thinking says: “The Pakistan Army would be willing to re-start negotiations around the so-called Four-Point Formula that was negotiated [between the representatives of former prime minister Manmohan Singh and then president Pervez Musharraf] in 2005-07.”
The Four-Point Formula, which looked beyond both sides’ claims to all of pre-1947 Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), ruled out redrawing borders or amending constitutions. Instead, it sought to make the existing boundary irrelevant by enabling commerce and contacts between Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC.
Across India’s political spectrum, the Four-Point Formula, or a variation of it, might be the only acceptable solution to the Kashmir dispute.
Pakistani signalling
On December 19, Bajwa first signalled that the Pakistan Army did not oppose dialogue with India. Briefing a joint sitting of both houses of Pakistan’s parliament on “national security affairs”, he conveyed the point that he would support any civilian government initiative on opening talks with India.
“You [parliament] will devise all policies including defence and foreign affairs, whereas we [the army] will abide by [the policies],” said Bajwa, according to Pakistani news daily, Dawn, which quoted a parliamentarian who attended the briefing.
Bajwa was accompanied in parliament by a senior team of generals, signalling the army’s resolve to crack down on terrorist groups. These included the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lieutenant General Naveed Mukhtar; the army’s public relations chief, Major General Asif Ghafoor; and military operations chief, Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, who gave a detailed briefing on the anti-terror Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad (End of Discord) launched
last February.
While the focus was on “anti-Pakistan” groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), with little emphasis on “strategic assets” like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) that function as deniable instruments of the Pakistan Army, Bajwa had backed the arrest of LeT chief, Hafiz Saeed, last January and his detention until a court-ordered release in November.
It is rare for Pakistan’s army chief to report to the elected legislature. The last time it happened was in 2011, when General Ashfaq Kayani and his ISI chief, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha, briefed parliament on the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad by US Special Forces who humiliatingly penetrated deep into Pakistani territory to carry out a unilateral operation.
Pakistani sources say Bajwa’s visit to parliament was also intended to telegraph the message that the confrontation with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML(N), was over with the ouster of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in July after the Supreme Court banned him from holding public office for life. Bajwa was signalling that the army fully backed Sharif’s successor, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, and that civil-military relations were again on an even keel.
Continues in original source
http://wap.business-standard.com/ar...ialogue-india-hangs-tough-118012700822_1.html
