In My View

Northern tears for Northern Areas

Pakistan’s ambassador at Brussels, Mr M Saeed Khalid, has ended his country’s decades of “calculated ambiguity” on the status of what is called Northern Areas of Gilgit, Skardu, Diamir, Ghizer, Ghanche and Astore. This is an area of 1.5 million people comprising normally vast, remote and mountainous terrain of 72, 495 kilometres. Ambassador Khalid’s first contention, made in his recent letter to the European Union’s Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne, consists of essentially two points:

(1) The Treaties of Lahore and Amritsar of 1846 that constitute as the main documents for establishment of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, do not recognise the area west of the river Indus. Thus the whole of Northern Areas were not a part of J&K on August, 1947.

(2) The United Nations resolutions are also relative to the state of J&K and do not apply to any part of the Northern Areas, “which were not a part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir before 1947. For this perspective, integration of the Northern Areas with Pakistan is also not prohibited.”

Baroness Nicholson, the Member of European Parliament who has drafted a recent report, “Kashmir, Present Situation and Future Prospects” has responded to the letter of Ambassador Khalid by stating that her careful perusal of the maps and historical documents has given her the belief that, “…Gilgit and Baltistan regions were constituent parts of Jammu and Kashmir by 1877, under the sovereignty of Maharaja (Ranbir) Singh and remained under the domain of the independent princely state up to and including the formation of India and Pakistan on 15 August 1947 and the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in its entirety to the new dominion of India on 26 October 1947.”

Now, this unequivocal assertion by a member of the European Parliament should actually gladden any patriotic Indian as a sure sign of international recognition to its claim to the whole of the acceded territory of J&K, including the six districts of Gilgit and others. But unfortunately this heartwarming development should not in any way lead India to strut on the global stage as the true of inheritor of a controversial legacy.

Because the latest ‘Great Game’ in town – if the world can be considered a small town – is the global “War on Terror” (WOT) in which the West has marked as the contending enemy, sizable sections of the community of Muslims. India’s 150-200 million Muslims belong to this global religious community and contribute to its civilisational ethos.

But from the perspective of the WOT, the Western or the developed North’s, multipronged strategy seems to be to sow sectarian divisions amongst the Muslims so that they do not subscribe to the concept of the quasi-religious ummah (brotherhood), without addressing the ideological predilections of Muslim anger; attack Islam culturally as an insular monolithic without dealing separately with the self-aggrandising former Islamic allies (like Osama Bin laden) of West who now have turned against them; and contain the Muslims politically so that they do not taste success in their quest for ‘real’ freedom, without addressing the imperialist root of the Western domination that they are challenging.

The latest European angst over the conditions of Northern Areas needs to be viewed in this light. As a precursor to the European Parliament draft report, the Brussels headquatered International Crisis Group, published a paper Discord In Pakistan’s Northern Areas.

The paper details how sectarian discord was systematically sown in the area by the late Gen Zia ul-Haq, an ally of the West in the frontiers of the Cold War in Afghanistan in 1988. It talks of how the predominant Shi’i population of the Area was butchered by the Sunnis of the neighbouring North West Frontier Province of Pakistan as the security forces of the country stood aside, quietly. This, the paper avers, was a part of Gen Zia’s plan to Islamise the nation under the leadership of the Sunnis.

Not surprisingly, a Pakistan-based columnist Mr M Ismail Khan wrote with great derision in The News, “Strangely, it took the EU or any of its member country, for that matter, a good 60 years to figure out that the Northern Areas have been wronged.” And indeed the European Parliament’s current draft report is designed to sow as much confusion as possible when both India and Pakistan are inching towards a solution to the Kashmir tangle.

Indian policymakers would do well to focus on the fact that largest amount of space – 11 points in all – in the letter by Ambassador Khalid was spent on buttressing not the political status of the Northern Areas, but on India’s domination of Siachen. He insists that India had accepted Siachen’s status as a part of the Pakistan controlled Northern Areas when the former acknowledged the 1963 border agreement of Pakistan’s with China, by which Pakistan ceded some of the territory of Northern Areas so that China could build the Karakoram Highway.

He has sought to establish that India did not challenge the contention of the political control either in 1947, 1965 or in 1971, the occasions of three wars the two countries fought. In April, 1984, all that changed when India put its armed forces atop the glacier.

In other words, the letter seems more as a step towards establishing negotiating positions than any attempt at renewing calls to hunker down and protect the homeland at any cost. An Indian war of words on the issue, would only heighten tensions in the sub continent, thus bringing the WOT to its doorsteps. Matured diplomacy is about establishing one’s own rights through concrete evidence in dialogues away from the glare of publicity, without grinding the face of the other side in dirt.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in.

In My View

Iran on a diplomatic overdrive

Riyadh. Sharm Al Shaikh. Abu Dhabi. Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s diplomatic sweep in the recent months seems to say something to the people of West Asia on the one level and the world, on another. The message he has driven is radically different from what the West Asians have heard almost since the Second World War – that the region belongs to them. And they do not need others – outsiders - to put their house in order.

Ironically, the message in bold relief – West Asia for West Asians – is being delivered by a Teheran that the West is still seeking to isolate and punish. And yet, Ahmadinejad is getting a resonance in the capitals of the region. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he extracted a promise from King Abdullah that the countries would jointly fight “conspiracies’ against the region. They vowed to increase efforts for unity in the Islamic world and “block discord amongst Islamic sects.”

Iran walked a tougher tight rope in its preparation for meeting the other parties in the Iraq conflict at Sharm al-Shaikh, Egypt. Courted by many like the hosts, the Egyptians, the Iraqis and the Saudis to definitely attend the summit, Iran had begun with a few concerns.

It had felt that the meet could turn into a ‘indict Iran’ kangaroo court where the US and its allies would seek to lay the blame for the ills of Iraq at Teheran’s door.

Or the meet, more specifically its much hyped sideline tete-a-tete between the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice and the Iranian Foreign Minister, Manourchehr Mottaki could lead the Americans to up the ante in the nuclear stand off. The exchange between two representatives of the country could allow the US President, George W. Bush to argue that he walked the extra mile only to be deadlocked by the Iranian intransigence on the nuclear issue.

And third, Iran felt that the meeting was being organised as a “consequence of the US attempt to lay the heavy burden of running Iraq's affairs on the shoulders of other countries and urge its neighbors to support the Iraqi government," as the Iranian news agency, IRNA had reported.

Some in Iran had wanted the government to set preconditions for attending the talks. Their logic ran thus: If the USA refused to fulfill the conditions Iran could not have attended the conference and thus walk the minefield. Or if the US did acquiesce, the latter could then begin the meet as a winner.

The next stop of Ahmadinejad in Abu Dhabi and Oman was pure theatre smacking of major power politics. He snapped at the heels of the US Vice President, Dick Cheney, who visited the region just days before entreating the nations to create roadblocks for an Iranian dominance of West Asia.

The rhetoric that emerged was equally florid on the other side. The Iranian president asked the Americans to pack their bags and leave. He addressed three public events in Abu Dhabi, including one at a football stadium, where thousands chanted anti-American slogans as he gave marching orders to the USA.

From the government of UAE, heavily in collusion with Washington, he extracted a promise that they would be neutral in Iran’s stand off with the West. But curiously they also talked of establishing regional security. Again, the message was about inter-sect peace and stability.

At Abu Dhabi, Ahmadinejad did not fail to deliver the almost triumphant message: that Iran will be talking with the USA directly on a bilateral basis in the near future, of course, for the cause of bringing peace to Iraq!

Here is a nation that was being pilloried daily by the USA and its main Western ally, the UK, as being led by a pariah regime seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And here they are engaging each other in a dialogue that could prove important for the region, if not just for Iran.

Of course, both the USA and the Iranians are approaching each other with great caution and trepidation. American domestic opinionmakers are busy clarifying the fact that the dialogue would be limited only to the extent of Iraq and not any other issue, read nuclear. And Ahmadinejad has gone on record to say relations between two nations are based upon “justice, equality, and peace.” And the present conditions between the two do not match up to that standard.

India’s External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, was in Teheran only a few months ago amidst much speculation about the state of Indo-Iranian relation. Recently, a few US Senators even wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh about how not to run that relation in light of the growing strategic relations between India and the USA.

Yet, not one quite appreciated an area of strategic convergence between Iran and India, and even the USA. Mukherjee in his press statement issued from Teheran had barely touched upon it in one sentence. “I expressed our appreciation of the cooperation extended by Iran to our assistance projects in Afghanistan,” Mukherjee had said.

With sections in Pakistan’s establishment seeking to raise the Taliban once again from the abyss it was in 2002, and with sections of the Bush Administration even seeking to open channels of communication with the new Taliban for supposedly ‘stabilising’ Afghanistan, Iran, India and the sensible sections of the USA have interests in shoring up those ruling sections of the Afghan elite whose mortal enemy are the Taliban.

Not surprisingly, Indian Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Murli Deora, known for his links with the West, sounded so strident in favour of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, only a few days ago. When built the pipeline would be a guarantee that neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan ever becomes a safe haven for an Osama Bin Laden and his fellow travelers. That would in turn go a long way to stabilise West Asia, whether the Americans choose to believe so or not.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kolkata. He writes on Strategic Security issue. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in .

The Base Expands

In My View

NPT coming under the scanner

In the past month two critical developments in the nuclear weapons realm have turned the spotlights to shine on the significant issue of global security. First was the convening of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). And the second, introduction at the Conference of Disarmament (CD) of a draft presidential decision to start work.

The draft decision included four crucial elements;

(a) substantive discussions on issues of nuclear disarmament

(b) prevention of arms race in outer space

(c) negative security assurances; and

(d) negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

Each of these issues has gained added salience in the past few years. And over the next few years these two parallel platforms will dovetail in many areas. Hence, it is imperative to see them together and examine the cross linkages, especially for countries like India, which are nuclear weapon states outside of the official purview of the NPT.

The NPT ‘PrepCom ’ kicked off in Vienna with a speech by the US Special Representative for NonProliferation, Dr Christopher A. Ford in front of the 130 members of the 189 signatory nations. Dr Ford had outlined the key areas of concern of the NPT in 2007.

Concerns about the Iranian nuclear programme, and North Korea’s withdrawal from the Treaty has focussed attention on its continuing efficacy. Pakistan’s AQ Khan ran the nuclear retail business that threatened the world order with a kind of vertical proliferation, which upended any of the safeguards the International Atomic Energy Agency could uphold. Finally, a key provision of nuclear energy cooperation in the NPT became a sticking point as a ‘dual use’ capability that the US aims to stymie.

Interestingly, the US Special Representative provided great amount of attention to Art VI of the Treaty that aims at a complete elimination of nuclear weapons. While on the one level, he waxed eloquent about the US effort to reduce its own stockpile of nuclear weapons in line with its bilateral treaty obligations with Russia.

On another level, Dr Ford sought to turn the disarmament clause into more of a guarantee of non proliferation and strategic weapons limitation issue. Added to that was the intention of linking the aim to include Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) to the issue of complete elimination of nuclear weapons, which he hoped, could be concluded “in this review cycle” of the NPT.

And here lies the rub. In a lengthy speech delivered at the Vienna ‘ PrepCom’ the Iranian Permanent Representative to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh delivered a damning indictment of the nuclear weapons states, particularly the USA, as the ultimate transgressors of the Treaty. Teheran took a position that they would not acquiesce to the agenda of the ‘ PrepCom’, which required a complete consensus to move forward. Their objection was to the phrase, “reaffirming the need for full compliance of the NPT.” For they felt, that language was inserted to harass them as they move ahead with their plans to continue with nuclear fuel cycle activities the US sought to debar.

They wanted the language to be changed. Eventually they accepted a South African suggestion that a footnote be appended to the agenda, that “compliance” indicated “with all provisions,” thus signifying that even the nuclear weapons states would be in a spot if they seek to make heavy weather out of the stipulation.

India too is front and centre of the ensuing debate. Though the country officially is not a member of the NPT – the US interlocutors like its Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and her Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns believe India has fallen in line with main provisions of the Treaty – it is being sought to be engaged through the CD.

India’s Ambassador to the CD has already stated, “India has a multilateral vocation and is ready to participate in the substantive work of the Conference, should it decide on appropriate parameters and do so by consensus.” He has even assured the CD that “…we would like to reiterate our consistent position, in respect of an FMCT, of the importance we attach to the negotiation of a universal, non discriminatory and verifiable treaty.”

Clearly, the current international mood is to shore up the weather-beaten Treaty and create a substructure that could hold up the tattered remains of an inherently discriminatory nuclear regime. It remains to be seen how much resonance the Iranian position of a direct challenge to the nuclear ‘haves’ gets.

And of particular interest would be to watch India function “with its multilateral vocation” after concluding the final bilateral deal with the USA on the nuclear issue. Of crucial importance would be when the CD and the NPT Review Committee takes up the issue of universal nuclear disarmament. Already, the USA has started talking of “practicable processes” that need to be undertaken, before the goal is reached. Would India abjure its idealist positions of yore and walk a similar self-serving path, now that the gates of the nuclear club are being opened a crack for it?

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in .

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