Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=January 12, 2004

TYPE=DATELINE REPORT

NUMBER=7-38225

TITLE=INDIA AND PAKISTAN

BYLINE=BARRY NEWHOUSE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=CAROL CASTIEL

HOST: Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan have agreed to restart peace talks on Kashmir and other bilateral issues next month -- after a break of more than two years. During a regional meeting last week in Pakistan's capital city Islamabad, leaders from the two nations both affirmed a commitment to begin what they called a peace process. Today's Dateline explores the roots of this new peace initiative and its prospects for success. Here's Barry Newhouse.

TEXT: India and Pakistan have been so divided over the Kashmir issue that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the mere prospect of peace talks was a historic moment.

Musharraf ACT (:15) History has been made in that we have arrived at an agreement. On taking this normalization process forward, for taking it to it's logical end.

BN: President Musharraf spoke at the meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, where he and the Indian Prime Minister privately met before announcing the peace process. After two years of tension, relations between the two nuclear powers have been warming.

Commercial air links have been reestablished, border crossings have opened, and over the past two years both countries have withdrawn about one-million combat-ready troops from their shared border in Kashmir. But despite the recent improvement in relations, many outside observers remain skeptical about the countries' ability to resolve their dispute over Kashmir.

Haleem ACT 1a (:05) Both the countries seem still very stuck on semantics.

BN: Irm Haleem is a professor with Northeastern University's political science department.

Haleem ACT 1 (:16) So it's been dubbed a peace process or an open dialogue as opposed to negotiations over the Kashmir conflict or even let alone resolution of the conflict. So I think there's a long way to go.

BN: Many political scientists share Ms. Haleem's skepticism about the prospects for peace. But others see the focus on process as a way to resolve minor foreign policy issues, and begin a dialogue that eventually will be strong enough to tackle the Kashmir conflict.

Dana Dillon is a specialist on Army foreign affairs at the Heritage Foundation.

Dillon ACT (:29) What they're really trying to do right now is to start a process more than they're trying to find a solution. One of the things they can do is discuss issues that they do agree on. For example trade issues or transportation issues or environmental control issues, population movement issues. Those are the kinds of things that they can work on outside of Kashmir that maybe when they develop a good relationship and develop a friendly relationship maybe Kashmir or peace in Kashmir will be the fruit of that eventual dialogue.

BN: This is not the first time the two countries have attempted talks on Kashmir. Since 1947, Pakistan and India have fought two wars over the northern province of about 8 million people. Just two years ago, the nations nearly fought a third war after India accused Pakistan of supporting a deadly attack on the Indian parliament. But the U-S-led war on terrorism has dramatically changed the region in the last two years, bringing the two rival countries closer together.

Rollie Lal is a scholar with the Rand Corporation in Virginia.

Lal ACT 2 (:41) When September 11 occurred Musharraf had to make a very serious decision about where he stood with reference to the militancy in Afghanistan in particular and this if nothing else forced Musharraf to come straight down on the side of secularism and state himself as an opponent of terrorism as a political method and I believe in that sense it has helped his relations with India. That means that basically Pakistan and India after September 11 landed on the same side of political issues with regard to Afghanistan whereas prior to September 11 they were on opposing sides.

BN: Pakistan's alliance with the United States in the war on terrorism may have brought its foreign policy more in line with India's, but that shift has come at a price for President Pervez Musharraf. Anupam Srivastava is a scholar with the University of Georgia's Center for International Trade and Security.

Srivastava ACT 2 (:20) Musharraf's gradual and reluctant moves to become a more reliable ally to the US- government led global war on terrorism have made him increasingly unpopular in Pakistan particularly on the side of the militants as well as the hardline military and intelligence agencies.

BN: Many believe this internal pressure--along with the two countries' common interests in the war on terrorism--has created promising conditions for a peace agreement on Kashmir. Just a few weeks ago, Pakistan dropped a 50-year-old demand that a referendum must be held in Kashmir before any peace talks with India could begin. The U-N recommended plebiscite was intended to gauge what people living in the disputed region wanted as a final settlement. Rollie Lal says dropping the demand was a positive step.

Lal ACT 1 (:18) That's one of the reasons that I believe you can take this set of negotiations a bit more seriously than in the past. I believe the Indians will take his move forward as an honest initiative on his part to move the relationship between both countries forward.

BN: But by dropping the demand for a referendum, many Kashmiris are worried that their view will not be represented in the planned peace talks. Last week President Musharraf tried to assure the groups that they will be included in the peace process but many are still skeptical. Some believe India and Pakistan will end up drawing the border at the current line of control which Irm Haleem says will not address the demands of many people now living in the region.

Haleem ACT 4 (:38) The conflict in fact is a tri-partite conflict. It's beyond just India and Pakistan. It involves India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris - so turning the line of control really only addresses the national grievances of both India and Pakistan - or if you will the national prides of India and Pakistan - it does nothing to address the basis for insurgency in Kashmir therefore it does nothing to address the constituency of extremist groups.

BN: It is these extremist groups in both countries that many experts now worry about. It is unknown if Hindu nationalists in India, or Muslim extremists in Kashmir and Pakistan will be satisfied with any Peace Agreement.

But for Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf, the benefits of any final resolution on Kashmir may outweigh the risks posed by the extremist groups. Particularly for the Pakistani leadership, Mr. Srivastava says there is a desperate need for some good news in a country that has gone through difficult changes over the past two years.

Srivastava ACT 4 (:24) Pakistan has to deliver on something because it's slowly sliding into a country whose economy is not going very well, foreign policy is stuck, nuclear and other programs are clearly questioned and it has a president that is unelected. And so this is a house that is not in order anymore and desperately needs some kind of foreign policy and economic breakthrough.

Despite the obvious commitment of the Indian Prime Minister and the Pakistani President, it is unclear whether diplomatic efforts by the South Asian nuclear rivals will translate into concrete progress toward peace. Formal peace talks will resume in February.

For Dateline, I'm Barry Newhouse.