Seldom has New Delhi’s foreign policy elite been so exercised about the travels of a PM abroad, but Syria seems to have shocked them into action. It turns out that an all-party delegation led by Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma, went to Damascus in the wake of the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament — the MEA had sent off a number of special envoys carrying letters by the PM especially to the Gulf, to explain its policy of no-talks with Pakistan — and met Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa. This particular delegation had left New Delhi soon after the SAARC summit in Kathmandu in January 2002, where Musharraf had galvanised the telly cameras into action with his impromptu handshake with PM Vajpayee. In his meeting with Verma and company, al-Sharaa, however made it quite clear that he had not been impressed with Vajpayee’s singular lack of enthusiastic response. While the Indian delegation was stunned into silence, al-Sharaa is said to have gone on and on about New Delhi’s need to reciprocate. Why then, ask some practitioners of foreign policy, is Vajpayee intent on visiting a country which doesn’t bother to even understand him? When Sinha ‘pre-empted’ MishraNational Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra’s visit to Japan last week was dedicated to starting a strategic dialogue with Tokyo — on the lines of similar partnerships with Russia, the US, Britain and France. But he had to face a new volley. Mishra’s interlocutors asked him to tell them more about External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha’s ‘‘P’’ word. Clearly, Sinha’s statement in Parliament the week before on India’s right to ‘‘preemptive strikes’’ had sent Tokyo into quite a tizzy, not to speak of the concern in the Japanese embassy in Islamabad. (Rumour has it that it took all of Jalil Jilani’s persuasive powers to restore calm in the Japanese mission in Pakistan. The new director of the South Asia desk in Pakistan’s Foreign Office, Jilani should know. He was Pakistan’s Charge d’Affaires in Delhi before he was expelled in February.) Mishra is then said to have reassured Tokyo that India was a ‘‘responsible’’ country and would never do anything that was untrue to type. After all, Mishra said, wasn’t there enough domestic pressure on PM Vajpayee to go back across the Line of Control when Pakistan invaded Kargil? His assurance that India would not carry out strikes against a nuclear Pakistan — reiterated days later by Vajpayee in Kashmir — is said to have allayed the nervousness in Washington, as well as its close ally, Tokyo, that a nuke war was not around the corner in South Asia.Tackling Kashmir, Advani wayIf Kashmir affairs comes under the ambit of foreign policy, then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani is definitely getting interested in foreign affairs. His appointment of N N Vohra as New Delhi’s latest interlocutor on Kashmir readily attests to that fact. As Home Secretary and Defence Secretary in the Narasimha Rao years and later Principal Secretary to I K Gujral, Vohra is pretty much aware of the tortuous twists and turns not only of the internal Kashmir story, but also its linkages with Pakistan. When the Siachen issue was on the brink of resolution in 1992, Vohra was Defence secretary — he’s amongst a handful who knows who blinked, what went wrong at the last minute and why. The wily bureaucrat belongs to the school that believes that the restoration of normality with Pakistan is essential for India to achieve its full potential everywhere else. With Vohra being given a free hand on talking to Kashmiri groups, speculation is rife about whether Advani is also considering a change of heart on talks with Islamabad. With the PM rolling the dice once again in Srinagar, things could be looking up both in North and South Block.Weekly news from WashingtonWhile the resignation of the US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill on Monday has come as quite a shock in the pan, there’s more news on that mission front. Turns out that Ashley Tellis, friend, philosopher and guide to Blackwill — apart from once being a Bambaiyah who wrote a seminal work on India’s nuclear programme when working with the highly influential US thinktank Rand Corporation, from where he was pulled out by Blackwill to come to Delhi — is also quitting the embassy. While Tellis’ two-year contract seems to have come to an end this summer, the fact remains that he would have hardly stayed on in India if Blackwill had moved back to the US. Also, the mission’s number two man, Al Thibault, is ending his term this summer. Meanwhile, the old order changeth in India’s own mission in Washington. Rumours about the early return of India’s ambassador to the US Lalit Mansingh will have to wait till the end of the year, even as the rumours of a senior career diplomat to succeed him have already gathered crescendo. Mansingh’s number two Alok Prasad is said to be moving to Singapore in December, while Minister (Commercial) Ajai Malhotra is going soon as India’s new ambassador to Romania.