India tries to prevent escalation of Pak row

In an effort to put back on track the India-Pakistan dialogue, which threatened to careen out of control following unguarded statements by both Indian and Pakistani leaders, Foreign Secretary Shashank asked Islamabad to avoid "uncalled for controversies".

Although the Simla Agreement of 1972 is considered by India as the bedrock of all negotiations with Pakistan, Islamabad prefers not be reminded of the agreement that was signed when India was the victor and Pakistan, the vanquished.

The Simla Agreement visualises the Line of Control as the international border, something that Pakistan believes, should be negotiable and should be viewed as one among the package of measures to be discussed to take the peace process forward.

It was in the interest of keeping alive the new-found bonhomie between the two countries and recognition of Pakistan's sensitivities that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime in its last days was talking only about the joint press statement signed between Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Gen Pervez Musharraf in January 2004 that heralded a new era of normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan.

The Simla Agreement was kept in the background merely as a reference point.

However, Foreign Minister Natwar Singh's remarks in Jaipur that the Simla Agreement constituted the basis for Indo-Pak relations, raised Pakistan's hackles.

The official Pakistan news agency Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Pak Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan as saying "if invocation of the Simla Agreement was meant to maintain the status quo, then that is not suggesting a solution, but a way of perpetuating the problem."

Khan said the status quo was part of the problem. "It is not a solution. It is not a question of which instrument is to be invoked selectively by which party," he said and recalled that there were UN Security Council resolutions which, he claimed, gave a clear blueprint of a solution.

Shashank tried to recalibrate India's tone. "We will like to reiterate that our approach is one of friendship and co-operation," he told reporters when asked about Khan's remarks.

"We hope the seriousness and sincerity with which we are committed to engagement in the bilateral dialogue process with Pakistan will be respected by the government of Pakistan, and an atmosphere free from the menace of terrorism and violence created to take forward and sustain the process," he said.

It was not just the Simla Agreement that the government of India was going to use as the reference point, Shashank added. "We will abide by the framework of the Simla Agreement, all subsequent agreements and declarations and the 6 January joint press statement".

"This fact seems to have been deliberately ignored. Suggestions or inferences that there are differences in intent between these documents, and that some of them would not be given due significance, are obviously erroneous," the foreign secretary said.

Observing that a framework had been laid out for a composite dialogue in coming months, he said the process would provide the two sides the opportunity to discuss all these issues and "any unnecessary apprehensions" in detail.