Furious that General Musharraf had secured the floor and grabbed media attention, India on Monday stayed away from an international conference and dismissed an opportunity to explain the battering it continues to receive from cross-border terrorism.But by evening, Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal was defending New Delhi’s decision to stay away — the conference was inaugurated here by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan — saying ‘‘it was not necessary that India attend every terrorism conference, that it was important to see what company we keep.’’Annoyed with Musharraf over a call for UN intervention in Kashmir on the lines of East Timor, Sibal said, ‘‘The kind of atmosphere conducive to dialogue cannot happen with the annual Kashmir itch that Pakistan suffers from. It might be better for Pakistan to do some fasting before they come to the UN.’’New Delhi took heart that US Secretary of State Colin Powell also turned down an invite to the conference organised by the Norwegian government and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, instead sending the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Richard Lugar.India’s fast friend Russia was represented by foreign minister Igor Ivanov, as was newly emerging ally Israel, with whom External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha had only met the same morning.But Musharraf demanded attention, and he got it. By painting Pakistan as the victim of geopolitical strife, despite its value to the Western world as a key ally in the battle against the Al-Qaeda, the Pakistani president also warned that there was a ‘‘growing sense among Muslims that Islam, as a religion, is being targetted and pilloried.’’Then he skilfully moved in for the kill by pointing out that ‘‘state terrorism, the most deadly form of terrorism, targets people seeking freedom from foreign occupation, such as in Palestine and Kashmir.’’A somewhat predictable and repetitive harangue against the Indian government and its ‘‘repression of the people of Kashmir’’ ensued, indicating that Musharraf would continue with the same motif in his speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.‘‘Equating their freedom struggle with terrorism is a travesty. The United Nations must promote a solution for Kashmir, as it did for East Timor, on the basis of UN resolutions. The international community must persuade India to end its repression in Kashmir and resume a dialogue with Pakistan. We are ready for dialogue. Now it is India’s call. It should respond positively,’’ Musharraf said.Sibal retorted that Pakistan’s accusations about India deliberately slowing the pace to return to dialogue — ‘‘zero returns’’ — flew in the face of facts, that the Prime Minister had taken several initiatives since April. ‘‘Since he has been investing only in terrorism, he should in fact be getting only negative returns,’’ Sibal added.At the conference, Jacques Chirac of France, whose position on the Iraq war has been feelingly echoed by New Delhi, also spoke. As did Afghan president Hamid Karzai, with whom India has been building bridges despite the stated unhappiness of neighbouring Pakistan.‘‘When a country is under foreign occupation,’’ said Chirac, in a thinly veiled allusion to the US occupation of Iraq, ‘‘it unjustly captures the struggle for freedom for its own ends. When a community feels ill-treated, terrorism claims to act in its name,’’ he added.But Chirac, on the eve of the UN session, has also proposed a new compromise to resolve the Iraq imbroglio to the Americans, saying that the US could symbolically transfer power to the Iraqi Governing Council immediately and real authority within the next 7-8 months.
