Armitage to begin season of visits

The deep-freeze in the India-Pakistan dialogue is all set for a summer churning with the onset of high-profile traffic between the leadershi...

The deep-freeze in the India-Pakistan dialogue is all set for a summer churning with the onset of high-profile traffic between the leaderships of India and US over the next couple of months. Barely three weeks after PM Vajpayee extended an olive branch to Pakistan during a visit to Kashmir — and reiterated the offer of talks in Parliament today — US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will arrive in the capital on May 9.

Two days before on May 7, Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra would have spoken at the Council for Foreign Relations in New York, after which he leaves for Washington to meet his counterpart US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and the chieftains of the State Department and Pentagon.

By mid-June, Deputy PM L K Advani will be in Washington on the invitation of Vice-President Dick Cheney, widely acknowledged as the key power in a city peopled with political heavyweights. Despite India’s reluctance to publicly accept the terminology of outside ‘‘mediation’’ vis-a-vis Pakistan, New Delhi seems ready and hopeful that US will use its ‘‘good offices’’ to bring Gen Musharraf around to implementing his own promise last year of ending cross-border infiltration.

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That is where Armitage’s visit to Pakistan and India becomes crucial. Accompanied by the State Department pointperson for South Asia Christina Rocca, Armitage will visit Islamabad — and Kabul — en route to his journey to India.

Armitage was in the sub-continent exactly 11 months ago, pulling back India and Pakistan from the prospect of war on the border, where they were eyeball-to-eyeball after the May 14 massacre of women and children at Kaluchak. Then, Armitage had extracted from Musharraf the promise to end infiltration as well as dismantle terrorist camps, which New Delhi euphemistically calls the ‘‘infrastructure of terrorism.’’

The visits of Armitage, Mishra and Advani are intended to pick up the momentum of bilateral dialogue from their abrupt termination at Iraq. The US side, however, is expected to stress the need in New Delhi to exercise patience even as it persuades Pakistan to keep its word on ending infiltration. Above all, US and UK is fearful that with snows melting in Kashmir, an incident similar to Kaluchak or Nadimarg may well provoke an Indian response that may be dangerous.

Diplomatic sources stressed that London and Washington continued to keep very closely in touch — for example, the joint Camp David statement in March on Kashmir, followed by Tony Blair’s interview to Pakistan’s ‘Friday Times’ newspaper. It is also significant that Mishra will stop in London on his way back from US.