It will be both diplomacy and sport at their high when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh will sit side by side at the Mohali stadium to watch their teams play in what will be a highly-charged second World Cup semi-final.
Mr Gilani will fly to Mohali with a large delegation, including ministers and politicians from both the ruling coalition and opposition, for a day’s trip, which officials and analysts hope will take the peace process between the two nuclear rivals forward.While each of the two nations will wish its team to win to enter the final of the cricket’s biggest contest, they will be one in wishing their leaders to succeed in their peace encounter, only two days after the resumption of a troubled dialogue process.It will be the third round of the so-called ‘cricket diplomacy’ between the two countries, after similar trips to India by then military rulers General Ziaul Haq in February 1987 and General Pervez Musharraf in April 2005, but first involving the elected leaders of both the countries.When Mr Singh sent invitations to both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani—though Islamabad decided on sending the prime minister—to join him in bucking up their respective cricket teams, political pundits termed it a major policy shift in India.But on their domestic fronts, both the prime ministers are facing increasing political hostility which requires them to show results without being seen as soft to each other.Besides facing a host of corruption scandals allegedly involving his cabinet colleagues, according to recently published WikiLeaks cables, Prime Minister Singh is reported to be isolated within his own inner circles in his conviction for a friendly relationship with Pakistan.Mr Singh is a ‘great believer’ in talks and negotiations with Islamabad, but his colleagues within the ruling Congress party don’t share his belief, said one of the cables recently published in The Hindu, a widely-circulated English daily in India.Entangled in multiple financial scams, the main opposition BJP is increasingly calling for Mr Singh’s resignation.Things are not much different when it comes to Prime Minister Gilani, whose government is facing similar condition in Pakistan. He has recently lost a couple of coalition partners in the centre who didn’t agree with the policies of his government.Besides facing serious governance issues, the ruling PPP’s popularity level has also nosedived in the recent past due to its lack of implementation on various rulings of the Supreme Court.The main opposition party, the PML-N, has also increased criticism aimed at the Gilani government and eying early elections. Besides the security establishment’s reluctance to have friendly ties with India, Pakistan’s right-wing political parties have always pressed for a hard line in dealings with New Delhi.Therefore, independent observers think that even if they want it, the two prime ministers will have to move mountains to make a real difference in the overall outlook of ties between the two countries.
A foreign ministry official said the meeting between the two prime ministers would go a along way in improving the overall atmospherics which had suffered heavily after the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
“If today Prime Minister Gilani has accepted invitation of his Indian counterpart, tomorrow, it wouldn’t be easy for him (Mr Singh) to turn down a similar request sent by the government of Pakistan,” said the official.
According to information available on Tuesday night from sources in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, Mr Gilani’s delegation will include Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, former ministers Sherry Rehman and Qamar Zaman Kaira, Fata parliamentary group leader Munir Khan Orakzai, States and Frontier Regions Minister Engineer Shaukatullah, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar, Religious Affairs Minister Khurshid Ahmed Shah, ANP leader Asfandyar Wali Khan, JUI leader Laiq Ahmad Khan, MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar, PML-N MNA Abdul Qadir Baloch, PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.
However, the sources said, last-minute changes in the delegation could not be ruled out.
No comments:
Post a Comment