NEW DELHI - Before Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met last Friday in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations, no one could have forecast how their first-ever talks would turn out. As it happened, their scheduled...
India-Pakistan Dialogue Moves Between Stagnation, Hope
NEW DELHI – After the first extended round of India-Pakistan talks on the eight issues they have identified as bilateral disputes or concerns, it is clear that their dialogue has entered a phase of stagnation. Earlier expectations that at least some issues would...
India-Pakistan Hope Gives Way to Uncertainty
NEW DELHI - The atmospherics still exude cordiality as India's Foreign Minister Natwar Singh rounded off his numerous meetings in Islamabad with Pakistani policymakers with a one-on-one conversation with Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. But the initial...
Pakistan, India Try Peace
NEW DELHI - Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan have returned in earnest to the negotiation table after a break that witnessed a parliamentary election and path-breaking political changes in India. On May 28, they wrapped up the first round of talks to be held in six...
New Accord a Modest Step to Ease Nuke Danger
NEW DELHI – Six years after they blasted their way into the world's nuclear club, India and Pakistan have taken some welcome, if tentative, steps in recent days toward nuclear-risk reduction and confidence-building, which they say would "promote a stable...
Pakistan’s Reward Could Turn Into Liability
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's major surprise this week – making Pakistan a major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally of Washington – was greeted with enthusiasm in Islamabad, but with stony silence here in New Delhi. Pakistani Foreign...
US Move Is Bad News for South Asian Security
Washington's policymakers might believe they have scored a diplomatic coup of sorts in South Asia by reportedly reaching a deal with Pakistan to allow US troops to be deployed in Pakistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden. This deal with Pakistan President Gen. Pervez...
Hindu Warrior Back in His ‘Chariot’
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads India's ruling coalition, has launched a new stratagem in its high-pitched election campaign to rake up its trademark issue of religious and ethnic identities. Starting Mar. 10, Lal Krishna Advani, the part's best-known...
How Not to Curb Nuclear Proliferation
President George Bush's proposed curbs on the spread of nuclear weapons, outlined at his National Defense University address on Wednesday, and the continuing disclosures about clandestine nuclear transfers from Pakistan to North Korea, Libya and Iran, occasion a good...
New Moves Underway in Nuclear Poker
Pakistan's government clearly seems to be moving toward putting on trial some of the individuals allegedly involved in clandestine transfer of nuclear weapons technology and components from Pakistan to North Korea, Iran and Libya. This is the signal that Islamabad is...