{"id":4092,"date":"2019-03-11T10:52:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T05:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4092"},"modified":"2019-03-11T11:54:13","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T06:24:13","slug":"kashmir-silver-linings-in-dark-clouds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/point-of-view\/kashmir-talk\/kashmir-silver-linings-in-dark-clouds\/","title":{"rendered":"Kashmir: Silver linings in Dark Clouds"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

Punchline<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kashmir\nReturns To International Discourse<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Z.\nG. Muhammad <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nTuesday 26 February 2019,   twenty years after the Kargil war alarm bells\nonce again started ringing in the capitals across the globe from Moscow to\nBeijing to Washington to Riyadh. On this day at around 3:30 am, the Indian air\nforce conducted airstrikes at Jaba hilltop in Balakot, in Mansehra District in\nthe Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Several Mirage 2000, dropped \u201c1000\nKg bombs\u201d on the hills.  The attack was\ncarried out in \u2018reprisal\u2019 of a car bomb\nattack on a CRPF convoy, killing over forty paramilitary troops on\nSrinagar-Jammu highway in Pulwama District- the attack\nwas owned by Jaish-e- Mohammad.   New Delhi chose to call the strikes as\n\u201cnon-military\u201d and \u201cpre-emptive\u201d in nature; targeting a Jaish-e-Mohammed\nfacility within Pakistan.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank\nGod for the clouds of war that frighteningly\nhovered for a week have started waning from the skies of the Sub-Continent. In\nthe seventy years, acrimonious history of\nIndia and Pakistan another terrifying date has been added to already existing\nlong list of the dates reminiscent of\nawful tales of death and destruction.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nalarm bells in the world capitals became louder a day after when on Wednesday Pakistan conducted air strikes on the Line\nof Control (LOC), shot down Indian jet \nMig-21 Bison in a dogfight and captured its pilot. To say in  the emerging scenario after the airstrikes,\nImran Khan  sportsman graduated  to be prime minister of Pakistan  conducted himself like a statesman would not\nbe eulogistic but admitting a fact. In the war hysteria discourses beamed from\ntelevision studios inside our drawing rooms,\nhis conduct set a tone for de-escalation and sent a message across that his\ncountry favoured a dialogue on all issues and not war with the immediate\nneighbour. Many friendly countries to both the countries worked overtime to\ncool tempers in New Delhi and Islamabad. From the crown prince of Saudi Arabia\nMohammad Bin Salman Al Saud to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Antonio Guterres, many other influential personalities were directly involved in behind the\nscene efforts for stopping the situation taking a catastrophic turn.  Some days\nback the State Department publicly stated that US Secretary of State Mike\nPompeo led diplomatic engagement directly, and played an essential role in\nde-escalating the tensions between the two sides. He spoke with leaders in both\ncountries, and that included the Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval,\nand Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\n1962, the India-China war United States\nhas acted as crisis manager between two hostile strategically important key\nSouth-Asian players. In 1962, Washington had advised Pakistan to desist from\njoining the India-China war instead made the two countries engage in talks- the\nBhutto-Swaran Singh talks. To quote Frank Morass, \u201cDuring the Indo-Pakistan\ntalks which followed Sino-Indian conflict in 1962, an attempt was made to work\nout ground rules for the access of both India and Pakistan to the Valley of Srinagar\u2026Their\nstatement suggested, while valley should go to Pakistan India should be\nguaranteed a corridor through the valley to enable it to supply to Ladakh, a\nfrontier area directly threatened by Chinese.\u201d That \u2018the Clinton, Bush and\nObama administrations aggressively worked to ensure that India-Pakistan\nconfrontations in 1999, 2002 and 2008 did not spiral out of control\u2019 are\nhistorical realities. Looking, at the US\nrole for peace in the region, the Donald\nTrump will have to react to the call by the New York Times Board\neditorial and do more to see the two countries engaged in a composite dialogue\nfor addressing their outstanding disputes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ostensibly,\nthe escalation between the two nuclear countries that to quote the Wall Street Journal has been \u2018flirting with nuclear disaster\u2019 has simmered down, but the war rhetoric has not died down.\nMoreover, with a countdown for 2019, Parliament elections having started it\nhas started getting louder at the elections rallies, and some television anchors, concerned with the rating  of their channels have been adding to\njingoism. The undying jingoism is like a thorn in the neck of South-Asia, and it has not only left many an analyst in the\nregion about the permanence of the peace\nbetween the two neighbours but has also become the cause of concern to the international community, if it did  not flare up. On Saturday, while I was writing this\ncolumn, television scrolls mentioned  \ndiscussion between US Secretary of State and British National Security\nAdvisor about the Situation in South-Asia. Discussing the vital global priorities Mike Pompeo and S Mark\nSedwill discussed the current India-Pakistan relations and its implications for\nglobal peace.  \u201cThe talk was reflective of\nthe fact that the United States continues to engage its resources to reduce the\ntensions between the two nuclear countries.\u201d There is an equal worry in Beijing\nabout the situation in the region. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi making a\nmention   in a press briefing held on the\nsidelines of the annual National People\u2019s\nCongress legislative meeting about the role played by him in reducing tension\nbetween New Delhi and Islamabad asked the two countries to resolve the dispute\nthrough dialogue and   “transform\nthe crisis into an opportunity and meet each other halfway.\u201d The worry about\ncrisis flaring up between the two nuclear countries is not only confined to\nWashington, Beijing and Riyadh only but is reflected in the international media\nas well.  The New York Times Editorial\nBoard in its Thursday write up wrote \u201cthis relative calm is not a\nsolution” and   it equally warned \u2018the next confrontation\nbetween the two neighbours might not end so calmly.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthis weird scenario, despite peace apparently  having been given a chance drumming of war from\nthe television studios and at the public rallies continuing, I nurse strong\noptimism for the peaceful settlement of the core\n conflict in the region. In the\nIndia and Pakistan conflict, so many\ncountries have not got simultaneously involved in the past as after two days\nrattling of the jets in the skies, in addition fears about Kashmir causing a\nnuclear war between them have not been   expressed so candidly. The New York Times,\nEditorial Board opinion that was carried prominently by the newspaper in India and Pakistan had a word\ncaution for the two countries in stating: \n“nuclear arsenals mean unthinkable consequences are always possible.\nAs long as India and Pakistan refuse to deal with their core dispute – the\nfuture of Kashmir – they face unpredictable, possibly terrifying, consequences\n“.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nwar rhetoric may not die down till the conducting of the Parliament elections\nnevertheless the global discourse about looming threats of a nuclear war and\nneed for a dialogue between the two countries will get louder after the elections. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written\non 9-3-2019<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Punchline<\/p>\n

Kashmir
\nReturns To International Discourse<\/p>\n

By<\/p>\n

Z.
\nG. Muhammad <\/p>\n

On
\nTuesday 26 February 2019,   twenty years after the Kargil war alarm bells
\nonce again started ringing in the capitals across the globe from Moscow to
\nBeijing to Washington to Riyadh. On this day at around 3:30 am, the Indian air
\nforce conducted airstrikes at Jaba hilltop in Balakot, in Mansehra District in
\nthe Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Several Mirage 2000, dropped \u201c1000
\nKg bombs\u201d on the hills.  The attack was
\ncarried out in \u2018reprisal\u2019 of a car bomb
\nattack on a CRPF convoy, killing over forty paramilitary troops on
\nSrinagar-Jammu highway in Pulwama District- the attack
\nwas owned by Jaish-e- Mohammad.   New Delhi chose to call the strikes as
\n\u201cnon-military\u201d and \u201cpre-emptive\u201d in nature; targeting a Jaish-e-Mohammed
\nfacility within Pakistan.  <\/p>\n

Thank
\nGod for the clouds of war that frighteningly
\nhovered for a week have started waning from the skies of the Sub-Continent. In
\nthe seventy years, acrimonious history of
\nIndia and Pakistan another terrifying date has been added to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kashmir-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4092"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4095,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4092\/revisions\/4095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}