Talking Point: Decoding the Manmohan-Zardari meet

It was the first high-level meeting between India and Pakistan since the Mumbai terror attacks on November 26 2008. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday in Russia. The meeting was strained though with the Prime Minister making it clear that Pakistan would have to get tougher on terror groups. The two leaders will meet against next month and the foreign secretaries of the two countries before that. Former diplomat K C Singh and CNN-IBN's National Bureau Chief Bhupendra Chaubey on what the meeting means.

CNN-IBN: It seems clear that the two foreign secretaries will meet. Do we know where and when this next dialogue between India and Pakistan will now take place?

Bhupendra Chaubey: We are not sure whether they will meet in India or in Pakistan or it will be in a neutral venue, but what we are certain about is that the meeting will happen in another two-three weeks because the NAM summit is going to take place in Egypt in July. The Indian Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon took great pains to elaborate is that it should not be looked at as an resumption of the composite dialogue. He said this was just a meeting, and that whether there will be discussions about terror will lead to the answer of that million dollar question whether this really is a resumption of the composite dialogue process.

CNN-IBN: Indian officials have made it clear that only terror will be discussed at the meet. Have the Indians given Pakistan any concrete plan on the action they want that country to take?

Bhupendra Chaubey: Well that's right. India's plan of action is very clear. They don't want to be caught in the same trap again where India talks about terror and Pakistan says why we are just talking about terror, why don't we talk about a whole host of issues whether it is trade or whether it is something else. This time around from what we have seen the body language of the Prime Minister, from the kind of the statements that are coming from the Prime Minister's office and the delegation that is travelling with him, India is keen and focused about only talking about terror. They want Pakistan to show that it is really sincere in taking some tangible and concrete steps in India's war on terror.

CNN-IBN: The two leaders will meet only a month away in Egypt next at that NAM summit. Is that conditional on how the talks go? What can we really expect from that meeting? As you are saying that the dialogue is terror-fixated so what is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh aiming from these meetings he is having with President Zardari?

Bhupendra Chaubey: Well the fact that the foreign secretaries are now meeting, and then the leaders of the two countries also meeting each other in Egypt is indicative that whatever has happened on Tuesday at the meeting between Manmohan Singh and Zardari is being looked at as a good beginning by both sides. It was an attempt being made by both the sides to break the ice. But how long will it take to break the ice is something that Indian official have no idea about.

CNN-IBN: There are reports that President Zardari was quite embarrassed when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began the official talks while cameras were still rolling in the room. What can you tell us about that meeting in terms of the body language?

Bhupendra Chaubey: Well those who have observed PM's dialogue with Pakistan, they have been saying that this was really an unprecedented step. Manmohan Singh is very confident after the historic mandate, the domestic political opposition is at it weakest so here is a chance for him to be a little more brave, to settle the fact that he is not a weak Prime Minister, that he is not focused, or can't think out of the box for India and Pakistan. The first statement that was made by the PM just as he entered is something that really put the Pakistan President on the backfoot because Zardari didn't expect this kind of a move by the Indian delegation. I don't think he expected this kind of a bravado from the Indian Prime Minister so as far as the body language is concerned, I think Singh is really the king here.

CNN-IBN: Mr Singh, do you see this as a genuine ice-breaker or simply India trying to size up Pakistan at the moment and see how serious and committed Pakistan really is to taking on the war on terror?

K C Singh: Let's look at it in the context of what the two sides went in saying and what they came out talking about. The Indian attempt I think is that this was just a one-off meet. They didn't say it was a structured meet, they were not sure of the agenda, they were not even sure whether this was just going to be a pull aside. The Pakistanis came in saying that this is a one-on-one, that they have an agenda and that they were going to address issues very seriously, so you could see the disparate approaches of the two sides. India was very cautious, it did not want to hijack the agenda. It wanted to keep the focus on terrorism and specially on 26/11. It's more than a coincidence that television space today is being shared between this meet and the Pradhan Committee fracas in Maharashtra. So the Mumbai carnage has not gone away and it is going to stay here to haunt the Government of India. When they came out of the meeting, the Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmud Qureshi managed to steal the limelight because he started giving out snippets even before we heard from the Indian Foreign Secretary. And he (Qureshi) talked about a historic meeting, resumption of dialogue and so on and so forth. Indian Foreign Secretary S S Menon has told us very little. All he has said is that the foreign secretaries of both countries are going to meet and then it will be a precursor to the meetings on the sidelines of the NAM summit. Now is this another promise? Another mechanism? Because previously the inter-terror mechanism was at the additional secretary level. What is perhaps implicit in this is that between now and the meeting of the foreign secretaries, some things will be done by Pakistan. Now what those things are we don't know. But obviously some kind of a to-do list has been given to Pakistan.

CNN-IBN: The divergence in the way the two countries have come talking out of that meeting is perhaps characteristic of India-Pakistan dialogue so far, but many are really saying that it is India which has given in eight months after the Mumbai attacks, eight months of saying that we will not talk until we see some action on terror. India has agreed to perhaps not business as usual, but at least on talking once again.

K C Singh: Yes, it is a risk that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is taking because he is talking to a weak President and we don't even know if he carries his own Prime Minister (Yusuf Raza Geelani) with him or not. There has been no explanation on why Prime Minister Geelani had held fort, seated with his cabinet, immediately on Hafiz Saeed's release. Now that is the position of the President of Pakistan. He promises you things in his meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but what and when is he going to deliver? And if you notice the foreign secretaries have been put in charge. These are Interior Ministry issues, so is it that he trusts his Foreign Minister more than his Interior Minister and his Prime Minister? If they wanted to move it forward, these talks should have been at the Interior Ministry level. Maybe the two countries wanted to maintain the form of the composite dialogue which is held between the foreign secretaries. But it remains to be seen what it is that Pakistan will deliver till the two foreign secretaries meet.

CNN-IBN: India has made it very clear that it is not composite dialogue and that they have certain expectations from Pakistan in the next month. Appreciate your joining us K C Singh. We will actually have to wait and see in the next month what Pakistan can really deliver.

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