NEW DELHI: The elaborate diplomatic dance between India and Pakistan has been interrupted once again. The two sides remain far from a major breakthrough in their troubled relationship. As long as the Pakistani Army continues to view India as an existential threat and maintains its grip over security policy, the twain may never achieve permanent peace.
India has called off the meeting between its Foreign Secretary Sujata Singh and her Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Chaudhry scheduled for August 25 in Islamabad, after Pakistan's High Commissioner in Delhi met Kashmiri separatist leaders. This has ended the euphoria following Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's journey to New Delhi for the inauguration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last May. Pakistan's decision to remind Indians of their dispute over Kashmir followed Modi's comments about Pakistani support for terrorism during a recent visit to Kargil, where the two countries fought a war in 1999.
Both Sharif and Modi spoke of the need to bury the hatchet during their meeting on the occasion of Modi's inauguration. But the expressions of desire for normalization could not contain the more substantive problems in the India-Pakistan relationship. India remains unhappy over Pakistan's failure to prosecute terrorists involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Sharif, on the other hand, must deal with hardliners in Pakistan's military who insist on seeing India as their country's permanent enemy -- unwilling to look too closely at the terrorists involved in the attack.
For India, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks were as much a challenge as the 9/11 assault was for Americans. The 12 coordinated shootings and bombings carried out by ten Pakistani terrorists killed 164 people and terrorized India's commercial capital for almost three days before commandos flushed them out of various buildings, including five-star hotels and a Jewish community center. The images of the attacks, telecast live into Indian homes, are seared in the memory of most Indians.
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Obsessed With India Pakistan Risks Anarchy Husain Haqqani
India has called off the meeting between its Foreign Secretary Sujata Singh and her Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Chaudhry scheduled for August 25 in Islamabad, after Pakistan's High Commissioner in Delhi met Kashmiri separatist leaders. This has ended the euphoria following Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's journey to New Delhi for the inauguration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last May. Pakistan's decision to remind Indians of their dispute over Kashmir followed Modi's comments about Pakistani support for terrorism during a recent visit to Kargil, where the two countries fought a war in 1999.
Both Sharif and Modi spoke of the need to bury the hatchet during their meeting on the occasion of Modi's inauguration. But the expressions of desire for normalization could not contain the more substantive problems in the India-Pakistan relationship. India remains unhappy over Pakistan's failure to prosecute terrorists involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Sharif, on the other hand, must deal with hardliners in Pakistan's military who insist on seeing India as their country's permanent enemy -- unwilling to look too closely at the terrorists involved in the attack.
For India, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks were as much a challenge as the 9/11 assault was for Americans. The 12 coordinated shootings and bombings carried out by ten Pakistani terrorists killed 164 people and terrorized India's commercial capital for almost three days before commandos flushed them out of various buildings, including five-star hotels and a Jewish community center. The images of the attacks, telecast live into Indian homes, are seared in the memory of most Indians.
...
Obsessed With India Pakistan Risks Anarchy Husain Haqqani
