The Hindu Business Line : Peace initiative in Islamabad

THE weather in this beautiful city was striking on Wednesday, the day Pakistan and India agreed on a roadmap for building bridges. The overnight shower had given lustre to the predominantly green city, and the clouds had receded making way for a gentle sun to emerge, taking the bite off the 7degrees Celsius, while still leaving that little nip in the air.

It was not as striking on the political front. The Foreign Secretary-level talks concluded with the two sides led by India's Mr Shashank and Pakistan's Mr Riaz Khokhar coming out with the roadmap for further dialogue and confidence building measures to promote "peace and security'' in the sub-continent. It was decided that the two Foreign Ministers — Mr Yashwant Sinha and Mr Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri — would meet in August to review and carry forward the peace initiative.

At a well-attended press conference, Mr Khokhar's assertion that the dialogue was held in a very "positive and cordial'' atmosphere and he found the "attitude of the Indian officials very constructive'', and his constant reference to "Jammu and Kashmir'' being an integral part of the dialogue process, did not cut much ice with the Pakistani journalists. Most questions from them pertained to whether the "degree of satisfaction'' between Pakistan and India on this round of talks going off smoothly had anything to do with what the people of Kashmir felt, the continuing "negative attitude'' of India and so on.

One journalist wanted to know if the Americans would continue to pressure the two sides to keep talking, and another asked whether Pakistan had raised the issue of "human rights violations'' in the Kashmir Valley, and if the "Indians had continued to sing the cross-border terrorism song'' during the talks. Mr Khokhar of course fielded the questions as a seasoned hand, without getting excited or agitated.

He told an Indian journalist who asked him to define `peace and security' that "as all of us are highly educated, I'm sure we all know the meaning of these words''. But on the issue of the American role he said the Americans had been playing a "very positive role'' and he hoped that this would continue. Though the issue of human rights in Kashmir was not on the agenda of the talks, he said pointedly while answering a question, "If human rights violations stop there, it will be very helpful to the dialogue.''

There was not even a glimmer of the fireworks of the Agra summit, the excitement, suspense and hype of the SAARC summit at Islamabad, or the expectations aroused by Mr Vajpayee's 1999 Lahore bus yatra. These were altogether missing. Everything was politically correct, right from the photo opportunity provided by the two Foreign Secretaries and the large group of journalists camping here could barely stifle their yawns. One hardly envied the television crews desperately trying to get an exciting/provocative sound bite from either side, with little success.

But later, at the Indian High Commission, Mr Shashank provided a ray of sunshine, especially for the Indian cricket enthusiasts by telling journalists that the issue of visas, particularly for the cricket series, did figure during the talks. The Pakistani side promised to be "liberal'' and said that at least everybody who had a confirmed ticket for travel to Pakistan during the cricket series would be given a visa.