The meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Asif Ali Zardari signalled the start of a slow thaw in India-Pakistan ties but the two countries will have to cover much ground to address issues like Kashmir and terrorism, Pakistani media said on Thursday.
The parleys between Singh and Zardari on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Russia on Tuesday the first such meeting since India put the composite dialogue on hold in the wake of the Mumbai attacks was welcomed in the editorials of most leading Pakistani dailies.
They however cautioned that both countries would have to make sustained efforts to get their stalled peace processback on track. The dailies also noted that there was divergence in the public comments made by the two countries after the meeting. Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said upcoming meetings between the two sides would focus on Pakistan's efforts to address terrorism directed against India while Zardari's spokesman said the stalled peace process had got a fresh lease of life.
"The resumption of greater normalcy between Islamabad and New Delhi is welcome. But while dialogue and negotiations between the two nations are to be encouraged, and have in the past led to steps such as the cross-border bus services that help people meet and encourage contact between them, it is time now to fix a firmer goal," The News daily said in an editorial titled "Time to Talk".The daily called on India to "accept it too has made many errors and committed many wrongs that need to be righted". It added that a "key area where it (India) needs to move, at least from Pakistan's perspective, is on Kashmir",The News opined.
The influential Dawn newspaper noted that incidents like the Mumbai attacks take the bilateral peace process back to square one and said, "India wants greater cooperation in good faith from Pakistan in investigating cases of terrorism against it. Pakistan expects the Kashmir dispute to be addressed as a result of this exercise. "Both know that these objectives can be achieved only after a confidence-building exercise has created some measure of trust between them. To revive the dialogue after an impasse can be quite a challenge and invariably requires the friendly intervention of friends the US on the present occasion," it added. It said the two countries would have to focus in future meetings on terrorism, "the key problem that threatens the peace and stability of South Asia".
The Business Recorder, in its editorial, was critical of Singh's stance at the meeting, saying it did not reflect the "going 'more than halfway' the Indian prime minister had promised in his inaugural address to the newly elected Lok Sabha". "We would like to give a chance to the outcome of the meeting...hoping that a more confident Manmohan Singh may succeed in turning the page on the long, bitter past". The Business Recorder also called on India to "behave like an elder brother" and "to come clean on issues like the dubious role of its consulates in Afghan cities bordering Pakistan, which we think, are greatly involved in fomenting trouble in Balochistan".
The Daily Times noted in its editorial that India was keen "to get action against terrorism" while Pakistan "wants to get back into dialogue". It added: "Both can't do more than that because of the pressure of public opinion back home. It is intensely negative on both sides. Indians are riled over the Mumbai attacks; Pakistanis are riled over Indian interference inside Pakistan." Pakistan's priority now is getting rid of terrorists and the "war against terrorism should not be an India-Pakistan war", the newspaper said. India and Pakistan should set aside the blame game on terrorism as a "new kind of dialogue between the two countries is essential", it added. Most dailies also reflected the belief in the Pakistani government and establishment that India agreed to the meeting on the sidelines of the SCO summit due to the intervention of the US, with the Business Recorder noting that "India is under American pressure to resume talks with Pakistan so that the latter can be assured of a peaceful border with India and asked to move more troops to the western border to combat Al Qaida and the Taliban".
