What Will Happen Next............?

What Will Happen Next............?

 Kashmir shadow over NSA-level talks between India and Pakistan: 10 developments

India has made it abundantly clear that a meeting between the separatists and Pakistan's NSA Sartaj Aziz, who is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Sunday for the talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, was unacceptable.

 

 



The upcoming Indo-Pak NSA-level talks appear to be on the verge of being aborted with both sides locked in a confrontation over Kashmiri separatist leaders holding deliberations with Pakistan. India has made it abundantly clear that a meeting between the separatists and Pakistan's NSA Sartaj Aziz, who is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Sunday for the talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, was unacceptable.

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The Pakistani invitation, which is seen as yet another provocation by Indian side, comes after persistent ceasefire violations as well as two terror attacks in recent weeks in Gurdaspur and Udhampur which many observers see as Pakistan army's opposition to any discussions with India.

Here are the ten major developments:

1. Hardened positions on both sides have cast a shadow on the talks but neither side has called them off so far. The two NSAs are scheduled to meet in New Delhi for talks on terrorism-related issues for the first time on August 23, as decided in a meeting between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif last month in Ufa in Russia.

2. Taking a tough stand before the highly-anticipated National Security Advisor-level talks, India on Friday said it has advised Pakistan that it would "not be appropriate" for its NSA, Sartaj Aziz, to meet Hurriyat representatives in New Delhi ahead of a meeting with his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval. But Pakistan remains adamant, saying it will go ahead with its talks with Kashmiri separatists and will not take any dictation from India.

Also Read: Separatist leaders put under house arrest before NSA talks
3. "India advised Pakistan yesterday that it would not be appropriate for Sartaz Aziz to meet with Hurriyat representatives in India," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. "Such a meeting would not be in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Ufa understanding to jointly work to combat terrorism," he said.

4. Pakistan responded by saying it won't take any dictation from India. The talks cannot be based on conditional diplomacy, sources in the Pakistani government said.

5. Since the mandate for the national security advisors is to discuss only terrorism-related issues, Kashmir would not figure and thus Aziz's meeting with Kashmiri separatists does not make sense, sources said. Aziz will arrive in the national capital on August 23 and meet Hurriyat leaders at a reception at Pakistan House, the High Commissioner's residence, that evening.
6. India maintains that the Pakistani invite to Kashmiri separatist leaders was "designed to scuttle" the NSA talks, and follows a typical pattern of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment since the Ufa talks to heighten tension.

7. Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah slammed both sides for escalating the Hurriyat talks to such a diplomatic tangle. "Who's (sic) idea was it to make such a big deal of the Hurriyat-Pak chat? These were such non-events before this Govt blew them out of proportion!" he tweeted.

8. The government's reaction comes in the wake of Pakistan's invite to Kashmiri separatist leaders ahead of the NSA talks on August 23-24. Separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir said the Pakistan envoy in Delhi invited them for talks with Sartaj Aziz before his parleys with Doval.

9. In a flip-flop on Thursday, the Jammu and Kashmir government first placed the senior Kashmiri separatist leaders under house arrest in Srinagar, only to release them within an hour. The government said it had detained them to send a strong message to Pakistan that the separatists may not be allowed to meet Aziz on Sunday.

10. Last year, India had unilaterally called off the Foreign Secretary-level talks after the Pakistan High Commissioner had held consultations with the Kashmiri separatist leaders on the eve of the meeting in Islamabad.