M A I N   N E W S

India, Pak talk of talking again
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service

I don’t think there is any problem or issue that cannot be resolved through peaceful methods and negotiations Ajit Doval, national security adviser Tone down the rhetoric; Honour whatever treaties have been already signed and continue talking to each other Abdul Basit, pakistan high commissioner

New Delhi, October 21
India and Pakistan have, in the past 24 hours, separately spoken about resolving issues through dialogue but without specifying its contours.

“We would like to resolve our conflicts with everyone through talks”, said Ajit Doval, India’s National Security Adviser, without naming Pakistan, while delivering a keynote address today at the core group meeting of the Munich Security Conference in Delhi.

“I don’t think there is any problem or issue that cannot be resolved through peaceful methods and negotiations,” Doval said as he described the immediate neighbourhood of India dropping ample hint that he was referring to Pakistan. The Munich Security Conference is a cold-war era NATO-backed grouping that looked at European security from Soviet Union in its hey days.

Just 45 km away from Delhi, Pakistan High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit, delivered a lecture at OP Jindal Global University in Sonepat last evening. He argued that an uninterrupted channel for dialogue between the two nations was important. He said there were too many preconceived notions that the people of these two countries hold about each other. Some of these were outdated. “We need to rid ourselves of these preconceptions and get to know each other better", Basit told the students at the university.

It was clear that Doval was referring to Pakistan when he said: “We have had problems in the immediate neighbourhood. We have terrorism and certain tendencies which are not conducive for the region”.

Even as he stressed the importance of talks, Doval was categorical, saying, “At the same time India will have effective deterrence capabilities which are credible and known by the people that Indian cannot be taken for granted”.

In Sonepat, Basit emphasized, “Youth of both our countries have the capacity to think differently as they have a global outlook and they are the ones who can make a difference to build a cooperative South Asia.” He outlined a three-point agenda for improved bilateral relations between India and Pakistan. “Tone down the rhetoric; Honour whatever treaties have already been signed and continue talking to each other”, he said.

At the conference, Doval asked the assembled gathering to seek a UN convention on terrorism and lay down the definition of terrorism. “Earlier, one reason that we could not define terror was due to Pakistan which wanted that causative factors and freedom fighters should not be treated as terrorists. The majority opinion was that terror was tactics and not an objective. Because of that it was held back”, he said.

“Why can’t we have automated response bring system of convergence in tackling terrorism?” Doval questioned as he added that the world is used to various conflicts but the conflicts now emerging are different, the wars as instruments of achieving political or strategic objectives were become increasingly infective and uncertain. There was no guarantee that the countries with superior firepower, technology, superior economic or diplomatic power will be able to suppress their adversaries.