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Pakistan called off talks between its National Security Advisor (NSA) Sartaj Aziz and his Indian counterpart, Ajit Kumar Doval, late Saturday night. It termed the 'preconditions' set by India - that Aziz neither meet Hurriyat leaders during his stay in New Delhi nor raise the issue of Kashmir during the talks - as unacceptable.
Islamabad blinked first but blamed New Delhi for having forced its hand after a day of uncertainty over the talks, agreed upon by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Ufa, Russia, on July 10. Pakistan decided against sending Aziz to India when New Delhi set midnight as a deadline for Pakistan to categorically state it wouldn't raise the Kashmir issue during the talks, nor meet Hurriyat leaders.
Beyond the New Delhi-Islamabad war of words, there were hints through the course of the day that talks could still take place, and the two neighbours might bypass the contentious issue of Hurriyat leaders meeting the visiting Pakistan NSA when the Delhi Police detained Kashmiri separatist leader Shabbir Ahmed Shah at the airport here on Saturday. Shah had landed from Srinagar with the purpose of attending a reception Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit had planned to host in honour of Aziz on Sunday evening.
Moderate Hurriyat Conference leader Bilal Lone, too, was detained at the airport here and taken to his rented residence in south Delhi, where he was put under house arrest in the evening, said Delhi Police sources.
New Delhi didn't want Pakistan's NSA to meet Hurriyat leaders before the talks, at a reception or otherwise.
Aziz was scheduled to reach Delhi on Sunday and hold talks with his Indian counterpart Doval on Monday. Other Hurriyat leaders such as Syed Ali Shah Geelani would either be under house arrest or detained if they had attempted to travel to Delhi to meet Aziz before the talks, sources said. This seemingly left a door open for Aziz to travel to Delhi, attend the reception, but not meet Hurriyat leaders, at least until the talks were over.
In Islamabad, Aziz said New Delhi was wrong in putting a precondition that he couldn't meet Kashmiri separatist leaders. He said the Kashmir problem was the centrepiece of the India-Pakistan dispute, adding the Ufa agreement mentioned it as such in the words "outstanding issues". Hours later, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj responded by saying Aziz was welcome, but only if the agenda for the talks was terror alone, as was decided in Ufa. Hurriyat couldn't be the third party in India-Pakistan dialogue, she added.
The rigmarole of media conferences brought little official clarity on whether Aziz was to fly to Delhi on Sunday or not. Both sides put the onus of calling off the talks on the other. Also, both announced they had prepared copious dossiers about how each was exporting terror or fomenting trouble in the territory of the other.
"Cancellation (of the talks) is yet to be confirmed from either side. Therefore, we are ready according to the schedule, without any pre-condition," Aziz said.
Swaraj responded by saying she wasn't putting any precondition but Kashmir wasn't part of the agenda, at least for NSA-level meetings. She added as decided in Ufa, the heads of the Border Security Force of India and the Pakistan Rangers, as well as the respective director generals of military operations, were to meet in September, as scheduled.
In India, media reported on latest photographs, and air travel and phone bills of Dawood Ibrahim, wanted in India for his role in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, as more evidence that he was living in Karachi.
Late Saturday evening, Pakistan Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid said his country would go ahead with the talks, unless India refused to host the meeting. "Sartaj Aziz will go to India if he is not stopped by India from visiting," Rashid told Pakistan's Geo TV. Rashid said Kashmiri leaders wouldn't attend the talks between the two countries, as they were only invited for a reception.
A little after this, India set midnight as the deadline for Pakistan to categorically assure New Delhi Aziz wouldn't raise the Kashmir issue, which Islamabad found unacceptable. It called off the talks at 10 pm. There is a possibility that Modi and Sharif could meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September-end.
