Friday, July 17, 2009

Sharm-El-Sheikh Statement and the Way Forward

The Hindu editorial titled 'There must be no backsliding' insists that the joint statement of Manmohan Singh and Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani is a wonderful thing. You can read the joint statement on the Ministry of External Affairs website (unfortunately, it cannot be linked to directly). The primary flaw in this claim has been well laid out by Nitin Pai at Acorn and I have nothing more to add. I would recommend this to everyone interested in this issue.

4 comments:

Karthik said...

Dude
What abt my nomination of MMS for swine of the week? Did I win anything?LOL

Xinhua Ram said...

Manmohan, it should be. Is DD listening?

Sudhir said...

Statement 1:
Excerpt from the Joint Statement issued by India and Pakistan in Egypt: "Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these [sic] should not be bracketed."


Statement 2:
Excerpt from the Prime Minister's answer to a query later in the day: "..dialogue cannot begin unless and until the terrorist acts of Mumbai are fully accounted for and the perpetrators are brought to book"

Isn't it elementary that both these statements are outrightly contradictory? Why then is our media so blatantly gloating about how this has been a "forward movement"? The media is behaving as if it is their credibility at stake!

Statement 1 was intended to satisfy international (read US) audience, and statement 2 was intended to satisfy national audience. Now, here's my fundamental question - why is India sounding more eager than Pakistan to begin the process of resumption of talks?

Read this article to see how the Pak media is viewing the whole thing - http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/jul/16/great-victory-for-pakistan-not-defeat-for-india.htm

the most shocking line in this article is this "Pakistan's Bashir took a tough stand against Menon.Bashir told Menon if you bracket the Mumbai attack with the comprehensive talks between the two countries then there is no possibility of a joint statement"

Pak taking a tough stand against us?! Seriously?!

- Sudhir

Dirt Digger said...

Karthik,
Sorry. I've been a bit tied up. Will definitely post the SoW for this week :)
thanks for the reminder.