Diplomacy

Obama visit: India, US to firm up joint defence projects

- by India Writes Network

Ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit to India in January next year, India and the US will be looking to bolster their defence ties and to firm up joint projects for co-production and co-development of weapons systems. US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Puneet Talwar will be holding wide-ranging interactions with senior officials of India’s defence ministry and foreign office in New Delhi December 1-2. The US delegation comprises senior officials from the State Department, Pentagon and the US Pacific Command.
Mr Talwar is the second Indian-American serving as assistant secretary in the state department after Nisha Desai Biswal, who is US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia.
The focus will be on identifying a wide array of projects for co-production and co-development in the defence sector, which fits in with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India’s initiative and his strategic intention to create indigenous defence-military base. Currently, India is among the world’s largest arms importer, with military hardware imports accounting for over 90 per cent of its needs.
The India-US political-military dialogue will seek to firm up deliverables in the defence sector during President Obama’s visit to New Delhi as the guest of honour at the Republic Day parade next year – the first time India has bestowed such an honour on a US president.

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Let’s Partition SAARC

- by India Writes Network

The excitement that greeted the handshake between the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers at the end of the 18th SAARC summit in Kathmandu is as unnecessary as the anticipation. Neither the meeting nor the handshake (which was nothing else but courtesy) was going to change anything in the India-Pakistan dynamic. Around the same time when Prime Ministers Modi and Nawaz Sharif were bidding farewell, the Fidayeen attacked in Arnia in the Jammu region, a rude reminder of the ugly reality of India-Pakistan relations.

By not diluting its principled position that Pakistan needs to respect India’s sensitivities on separatism and address its concerns on terrorism for any dialogue between the two countries to become meaningful, Modi has sent a firm message that this time the ‘no business as usual’ position is for real. But at the same time it was also clear that India was not going to let its bilateral troubles with Pakistan impinge on the vision that the new government has for developing SAARC into a vibrant and dynamic regional grouping. Therefore, to blame the failure of the Summit to ink two agreements relating to road and rail connectivity on the so called India-Pakistan logjam is dumbing down of what actually transpired and what was at stake at the SAARC summit.

Despite the frostiness that exists between India and Pakistan, New Delhi was more than willing to put its problems with Islamabad aside in the larger interest of the South Asian community. Pakistan, on the other hand, wanted to play its diplomatic hardball by blocking the agreements. Some Pakistani analysts are of the view that this was Pakistan’s payback for India vetoing the entry of China as a full member of SAARC. There is also talk in Pakistan that these agreements would pave the way for India getting overland transit facilities to Afghanistan and beyond, something that Pakistan could not allow.

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Messaging behind Modi-Sharif handshake: Keep guessing!

- by Manish Chand

It may have lasted for a minute. But in the end, it was the warm handshake between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif that will remain the most enduring image and the most tweeted photo of the 18th SAARC summit in Kathmandu.
The ringing applause that followed the handshake between the leaders of India and Pakistan and the beaming faces at the end of the Kathmandu summit on November 27 said it all. In the end, despite the official disclaimer that the SAARC is not about India and Pakistan, it was clear that the eight-nation regional grouping can only take off if that handshake translates into a meaningful dialogue between the two estranged neighbours of South Asia.

In a sense, the hype about the Modi-Sharif handshake, with television news channels hysterically speculating 24×7 about a possible meeting between the two leaders which did not happen, also ironically underlines diminishing expectations about the India-Pakistan relations that remain eternally enmeshed in mutual recriminations and the thick fog of suspicion.

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New energy in SAARC: Summit salvaged as India, Pakistan PMs smile

- by Manish Chand

In diplomacy, a seemingly impossible situation can change dramatically in a few hours’ time. And so it was with the 18th SAARC summit. The jamboree of the South Asian leaders was dismissed till last night as a no-show till some fresh air and spirited talk among leaders at a resort town outside the mountain city of Kathmandu reversed the gloom and doom narrative, with SAARC signing a potentially defining pact on sharing electricity.
As the curtains came down on the two-day SAARC summit, the optics of the summit had changed radically, with the leaders of India and Pakistan warmly shaking hands after the leaders unanimously adopted the Kathmandu Declaration that outlined a reasonably doable agenda for intensifying multifarious cooperation across the spectrum.
India, which was looking visibly disappointed at the stalling of the three SAARC pacts on energy, road and rail connectivity by Pakistan, heaved a sigh of relief with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif finally going along with other SAARC leaders to give his assent to the pact on creating a regional power grid.
In the end, it was the relaxed and informal interaction among leaders at the retreat at Dhulikhel, an idyllic resort town located nearly 30 km away from the capital Kathmandu, that did the trick. The view of the majestic Himalayas may have helped clear the air.

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Amid China’s SAARC embrace, India flags off Enhanced South Asia policy

- by Manish Chand

Amid China’s moves to deepen its foray into the region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repositioned India in the leadership role in the SAARC, with a clear message that India will move ahead with regional integration, with or without SAARC. In fact, India’s ‘enhanced’ South Asia diplomacy is set for a major upsurge with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay travelling to the country early next year and Mr Modi planning bilateral trips to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives in the coming months.
Refreshingly, India is unfazed by Pakistan’s negativity and is set to galvanize its South Asia diplomacy by backing words with deeds. This enhanced South Asia policy will be reflected in a spate of two-way visits.
Apart from accelerating commerce and connectivity with South Asian countries, India will also be looking to deepen strategic and security ties with South Asian neighbours, which has acquired a new urgency with China deepening its footprints in India’s periphery.

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SAARC pacts: Pakistan plays spoiler, India says will move ahead with integration

- by Manish Chand

The spotlight is on Pakistan at the 18th SAARC summit in Kathmandu, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Leaders of South Asian countries voiced “disappointment “ at the stalling of the three key pacts on road and rail connectivity and energy-sharing by Pakistan, which refused to go along with the pacts which were expected to be headline outcomes of the SAARC summit on grounds that its internal processes were not complete.
“They were more than a little disappointed ( at the failure of the SAARC connectivity and energy-related pacts to go through), ” Syed Akbaruddin, the spokesperson of India’s external affairs ministry, told journalists at the end of a long-day of back-to-back diplomatic engagements by the Indian prime minister. The spokesperson stressed that the leaders, in their discussions with Mr Modi, said that “this did not augur well for the region. “
India, on its part, clarified that these pacts were not India’s proposals but those of the SAARC secretariat, and underlined that despite the temporary stalling of these pacts, India will march ahead on bilateral track or through the path of sub-regional integration.

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