Deadlock continues

pakistan president Pervez Musharraf's summit-level talks with prime minister Manmohan Singh on April 17, 2005 at New Delhi made little headway in resolving the Baglihar dam row, which has become crucial to defining the future bilateral relations between the two nations. This was despite Singh underlining India's keenness to solve the dispute bilaterally and assuring Musharraf: "We are committed to the Indus Water Treaty (iwt) on sharing waters between the two countries...We certainly have no interest in harming the interests of Pakistan." But the lack of any breakthrough in resolving the matter was evident in that the joint statement released at the end of the talks did not mention it at all.

Although the Pakistani side did not strike a negative stance on the contentious issue during the "meeting of minds", as Pakistan's foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri described Musharraf's three-day visit to India, perhaps not much can be read into this. Just a couple of days before the visit, Pakistan had approached the World Bank (wb) to expedite the appointment of a neutral expert to resolve the dispute. "The process is more or less complete for the appointment of the neutral expert," Pakistan's foreign ministry spokes person Jalil Abbas Jilani had announced on April 12, 2005. Pakistan had first approached the wb in January 2005 to adjudicate on the matter following the failure of secretary-level talks between the two countries on the Baglihar hydro-electricity project (see Down To Earth, 'Clear as mud', February 28, 2005). Pakistan insists the project violates the 1960 iwt while India maintains otherwise. Pakistan is seeking wb's interference as the latter was the arbitrator in the iwt's formulation .

Following the January impasse, both the parties resorted to diplomatic manoeuvring. While Pakistan sought wb's mediation, India urged it to stay away from the dispute. wb's reluctance to interfere pushed the two countries to seek the negotiating table again. On March 9, 2005, Union minister of water resources Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi expressed the hope that a tangible solution would be found bilaterally: "We are open to talks. I feel it [the issue] will be taken up bilaterally very soon." However, despite Dasmunsi's assertion that there was no technical fault with the dam or any threat to Pakistan, the latter imposed a precondition for resuming talks: "immediate halt to construction work". While it still maintains this stance, the pressure to hold a dialogue is increasing on Pakistan due to wb's silence on the issue as well as India's decision of continuing the construction work on the project; 60 per cent work is already complete.

The one positive signal has been emanating from people-to-people contact. Last month, a left party delegation from India discussed the issue with Musharraf in Pakistan. Pakistan Muslim League president Shujaat Hussain Chowdhury also stressed that the issue should be solved bilaterally when he met Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi recently.

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