Unreliable Pakistan : The Tribune India

PAKISTAN has a knack for taking one step forward, two steps back — or worse, to keep going around in circles. In an interview with a Dubai-based news channel, Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif held out an olive branch to India, saying that wars between the two neighbours had ‘only brought more misery, poverty and unemployment to the people.’ He urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sit at the table and have ‘serious and sincere talks to resolve our burning issues, like Kashmir.’ Hours later, the Pakistan PM’s Office ‘clarified’ that no bilateral negotiations were possible unless India reversed its ‘illegal action’ of revoking Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir. New Delhi has repeatedly asserted that its decision to abrogate Article 370 is its ‘internal matter’ in which Pakistan should not meddle. This firm stand has been endorsed by countries such as the US and Bangladesh. India has also made it clear that talks with Pakistan are not possible as long as the latter keeps aiding and abetting cross-border terrorism. Islamabad has come a cropper on both counts. Shehbaz’s overture is an exercise in futility because Pakistan is not ready to mend its ways despite the embarrassing loss of its credibility.

Going by past experience, India has no reason to trust Pakistan’s seemingly conciliatory approach. The neighbour is a past master at making treacherous U-turns and going back on its word. Months after the Sada-e-Sarhad ‘bus of peace’ carried the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Lahore in 1999, Pakistan inflicted the Kargil war on India. Days after PM Modi made a surprise stopover in Lahore to greet the then PM Nawaz Sharif on his birthday on December 25, 2015, a terror attack rocked the Pathankot Air Force station. Pakistan-based terror groups continue to foment trouble in Kashmir, even as the intrusion of drones with payloads of arms and drugs has become a routine occurrence in the border districts of Punjab.

Facing an economic meltdown, exacerbated by food and fuel shortage and last year’s devastating floods, Pakistan is desperate to resume trade with India. However, the onus is squarely on Islamabad to create conditions conducive to the normalisation of bilateral ties with New Delhi.