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Keeping the K word off foreign lips is stretching Indian diplomacy to the full. September is a particularly demanding month. Much skill will be required to negotiate the diplomatic highway from Durban through Moscow to New York.
Fortunately there is no shortage of talent inside and outside the MEA. India fields a formidable team. After the Prime Minister set things right at the NAM, President K R Narayanan went to Bonn to tell Germany (a key G-7 player) that India is second to none in its commitment to keep the world free of weapons of mass destruction.
Even now at the inter-parliamentary union (IPU) session in Moscow, Lok Sabha Speaker G Balayogi and Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson Najma Heptullah are putting up a valiant stand. Atal Bihari Vajpayee is preparing to go out to the toughest test of all at the UN General Assembly session in late September.
Meanwhile Jaswant Singh stays the course, chalking up four and a half meetings with Strobe Talbott so far. And it is not as though the space betweenthese challenging international encounters has been vacant. There have been as many firm statements on the bilateral process and clarifications on nuclear policy as anyone could wish for.
It is not for lack of effort on India's part that parties as far removed from Washington as South Africa, Iran and Russia persist in naming Kashmir and talking about a nuclear stand-off in South Asia in the same breath. A partial explanation for such stubborn misperception could be the usual policy inertia in world capitals.
Ever since the Security Council resolution on India and Pakistan's nuclear tests last June provided the policy framework, there has been no noticeable attempt in Tokyo or Moscow or Teheran, leave alone London and Copenhagen, to nuance their responses.
One would have expected a better understanding of the sub-continental situation after the Vajpayee government laid out its nuclear doctrine in a series of statements: a moratorium on testing, minimum deterrence and no-first-use of nuclear weapons. Butforeign interlocutors are still getting it wrong. Even Teheran, whose foreign policy is not susceptible to western influence and who shares many of India's concerns, is a disappointment.
New Delhi's professed policy of nuclear restraint is not receiving the credibility it should. Chasing the K word from one international forum to the next and declaring victory every time it is taken off the agenda is hardly the way to win friends and influence people.
This policy reeks of defensiveness. When all is said and done the most important factor responsible for misperceptions abroad is the absence of an India-Pakistan dialogue. Petty skirmishing over the modalities of talks leaves the initiative with those in Islamabad who believe their advantage lies in a no-talks scenario. Going the extra mile may or may not bring Islamabad to the table but does have some propaganda value.
Mobilising international opinion for collective action against cross-border terrorism puts pressure on Pakistan and should be pursuedvigorously. In that context the world should be encouraged to utter the K word. A diplomatic offensive would help turn the tables.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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