India-Pakistan: hardening positions
A familiar and unhappy trend is reasserting itself in the PakIndia relationship: the leaderships of both sides appear to be more interested in domestic posturing than genuinely seeking to engage each other. Yesterday, foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz continued with his recent hardening line on India when he claimed that New Delhi was avoiding dialogue with Pakistan because dialogue would mean negotiating over difficult issues such as the Kashmir dispute. While Mr Aziz reiterated that Pakistan remains open to resuming dialogue with India, the theme of his remarks suggested that he is far from convinced that breakthroughs on the dialogue front are imminent.
Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave an interview to a hawkish Indian TV outfit in which he suggested that his government’s policies had created difficulties for Pakistan in the international arena. Mr Modi went on to claim that his government’s willingness to talk to Pakistan was complicated by the civil-military imbalance here. It was a quintessential performance by Mr Modi: claiming to be in favour of peace, while making peace the hardest possibility.
The emerging and familiar trend needs to be fought. Pak-India relations are too important for either side to allow old patterns to endlessly re-emerge and scuttle the hopes and aspirations of the two countries’ peoples. As ever, the answer remains in acknowledging that there is some merit to the arguments made by both sides. The bilateral dialogue that Mr Modi appears to have in mind is very different to the concerns Pakistan has. Pakistan has never rejected discussing terrorism-related issues; in fact, the country’s foreign policy architects have consistently argued that the Composite Dialogue, now the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue, has within it the means to address terrorism concerns alongside the core issues that Pakistan wants discussed. Yet, just as Mr Modi and his government seem opposed to the very idea of negotiating over the Kashmir dispute, Pakistan downplays India’s terrorism concerns. Consider that after years of unresolved issues over the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, the Pathankot incident appears to be headed in the same direction. If it is unreasonable of India to not want to discuss the Kashmir dispute, it is unrealistic of Pakistan to believe that India will simply move on from major terrorist incidents with the passage of time. Amidst the cooling bilateral relationship, there remains at least one island of hope: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The prime minister’s willingness and ability to personally reach out to Mr Modi is established.
Similarly, domestically Mr Sharif has shown a hitherto unknown capacity for restraint and a willingness to find ways to work with the military leadership. What remains to be seen is if the prime minister can pull off the ultimate balancing act between the complaints of Mr Modi and the demands of the military leadership.
Istanbul carnage
TUESDAY’s terrorist attack on Istanbul’s international airport highlights both Turkey’s worsening security situation and the militant Islamic State group’s strategy to destabilise the strategically located Nato country. Even though Ankara’s civilian airport had seen a minor terrorist attack last December, this is for the first time that Ataturk airport, one of the world’s busiest, has been subjected to a dual suicide bombing and gun attack that left over 40 people dead and some 240 injured. Separatist Kurds have also been involved in recent attacks, but Tuesday’s carnage seems to fall in line with IS’s strategy to cripple Turkey’s tourist industry — on Jan 12, a Syrian suicidebomber killed 12 German tourists in Istanbul. As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “much worse things could happen” unless “all governments and the entire mankind joined forces in the fight against terrorism”. With the five-year multilateral war in its south showing no signs of ending, the IS challenge is one of the many crises Turkey faces in a part of the world where terrorism, sectarian conflicts and civil wars have thrown into doubt the very survival of some states. Tuesday’s atrocity comes a day after Tehran reported the death of 14 Iranian troops and Kurdish militants in a clash.
The skirmish took place on the Iraq-Iran border; however, it highlights Turkey’s own decades-old Kurdish insurgency, which has not only revived but seems to have gained strength after Kurdish fighters occupied a sliver of Syrian territory along the Turkish border. Turkey has also been dealing with the flood of Syrian refugees with its consequent fallout on Ankara’s relations with the European Union. In this vortex of military, diplomatic and humanitarian crises, Turkey has to decide which side it is on. The Syrian war is a multilateral conflict, but it often appears President Erdogan’s government looks at it through its Kurdish prism and believes in a ‘get Assad first’ philosophy. What it must not forget is that President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster is no guarantee of a peaceful, ‘normal’ Syria and that the fall of the Baathist regime could find IS better positioned in Turkey’s underbelly. Also, Ankara is grossly mistaken if it thinks IS could help it sort the Kurds out; it should know that IS does not believe in any alliances; it believes in a kill-all philosophy which considers death and destruction an end in themselves. It is time Ankara clarified its thinking and made the right choice.
Over the moon
IT is a measure of just how complicated the affairs of this country have become when we are hopeful of a resolution to a problem in the temporary absence of one influential individual. Mufti Popalzai, we are told, is away in Saudi Arabia to perform umrah, which raises expectations that, this time round, we might be able to celebrate Eid on the same day all over the country. The mufti, who belongs to Masjid Qasim Ali Khan in Peshawar, has frequently been cast as the one-man force responsible for this country routinely having two Eids. There is a long history to this controversy which is highlighted most during the sighting of the moon for Ramazan and Eidul Fitr. So many years have gone into the dispute that now it appears as if it is no longer just a matter between the state-appointed Ruet-i-Hilal Committee and an individual who is routinely inclined to celebrate Eid a day earlier than the majority in the country. Reports indicate that even when Mufti Popalzai and one or more of his top aides may be away, there is a system in place to assert the evidence of moon-sighting if and when the Qasim Khan followers see it fit.
In sum then, the chances of disagreement and controversy are there even when the renowned mufti is not. It is quite clear that disagreement has to be addressed by confronting and discussing the issue rather than wishing for relief from the temporary removal of the dissenter. The chances of a durable answer are linked to all sides sitting down and finding a way to celebrate together, without their usual hang-ups — however impossible a proposition this may seem.
Let’s repeat it once more: science offers a way out, only if those in disagreement are willing to make use of it for the sake of clarity and cohesion. Others who have applied scientific formulae to deal with the matter are able to celebrate their Eids without the controversies that are common in Pakistan.
Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2016
http://www.dawn.com/newspaper/editorial