New Delhi, January 16
Pakistan is expected to formally put on the table President Pervez Musharraf’s Kashmir-centric proposals during the Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan beginning here tomorrow.

As Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan arrived here this evening for talks with his Indian counterpart Shyam Saran, a chill in Indo-Pak relations can be sensed and last year’s euphoria and expectancy appear to have evaporated. Diplomats from the two sides have clammed up completely and indications are that the talks would be marked by mutual suspicion and abundant caution, rather than bonhomie.

A key source told The Tribune this evening that the Pakistani side would be formally putting forward Gen Musharraf’s proposals about self-governance and demilitarisation in Jammu and Kashmir which he has been airing through the media. The Indian side has consistently declined to comment or even take cognisance of Gen Musharraf’s “out-of-the-box” proposals, saying that it could comment only on formal proposals.

What has brought the chill back into Indo-Pak relations are two issues: India’s concern on unmitigated, high-profile terror attacks like the Delhi blasts (October 29, 2005) and the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, outrage (December 29, 2005), from the Indian perspective and the Indian “interference” in Pakistan’s internal affairs by expressing concern on situation in Balochistan, from the Pakistani perspective.

While Pakistan may like to describe Kashmir as the “core issue”, Balochistan, their largest of the four provinces, is fast emerging as a sore issue for Islamabad. Diplomatic observers say that the Pakistan government, miffed by an Indian reaction of “concern” over Balochistan developments, is going to take up the subject at the talks beginning tomorrow. As for New Delhi, it is not going to raise the Balochistan issue on its own, but if the Pakistani side brings the subject on the table, the Indian Foreign Secretary is going to stick to his guns and defend the Indian reaction

Moreover, the US-based Baloch Society of North America (BSO-NA) President, Dr Wahid Baloch, has shot off a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan seeking his intervention over Pakistan’s military operation in Balochistan since mid-December and said: “The situation is very tense and an all out war is imminent.”