Raheel Sharif called on Nawaz Sharif at the prime minister's residence and they exchanged views on “Indian atrocities in the occupied Kashmir”, news reports said. Thursday marked also another important development in the Pakistani capital. Instead of finding fault with our home minister’s speech, our so-called liberals should impress upon the Pakistani prime minister not to play with fire. In fact, in March, Republican Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had threatened to bar any US funding for Islamabad’s purchase of $700 million of Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 fighter jets. The decision to withhold funds comes in the wake of the growing resistance in the US Congress to send money to Pakistan. The $300 million comes under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), a US Defence Department programme to reimburse allies that have incurred costs in supporting counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations. It may be noted that of late,the US and Pakistan have been at loggerheads over the latter’s unwillingness to act against extremist groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network. And another bit of concrete evidence - and this is the other major development of the day - of this was Pentagon’s decision not to pay Pakistan $300 million in military reimbursements after US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter decided not to tell Congress that Pakistan was taking adequate action against the Haqqani Network (a Pakistani-funded and guided terror outfit in Afghanistan fighting the democratic regime there). So, apart from China, nobody takes Pakistan seriously and its growing international isolation is being debated in various Pakistani think tanks these days. As is very well-known, terrorism is an instrument of Pakistan’s foreign policy, particularly vis-à-vis India and Afghanistan. If anything, it only reflects Pakistan’s double-talk on terrorism. And if this is the case, what crime has Rajnath committed when he spoke of a regional imperative to tackle terrorism in South Asia, including Kashmir? The point here, thus, is, that Pakistan’s decision to be a part of the Chinese sponsored group means that it realises that growing domestic militant threat (in this case, battling Islamist militants) cannot be fought alone and that there is a need for coordination with other countries in general and neighbours in particular. Apparently, Afghan army chief of general staff, General Qadam Shah Shaheem, Pakistani army chief General Raheel Sharif, and the Chief of General Staff of the Tajikistan armed forces, Major-General EA Cobidrzoda took part in the talks. "All parties reaffirmed they will cooperate to respond to these forces, and safeguard all member countries' peace and stability," Xinhua said. According to Chinese news agency Xinhua, the four countries recognised the serious threat of terrorism and extremism to regional stability, and they agreed to set up a "four-country mechanism" for intelligence sharing and training. One is the decision that China is to set up an anti-terrorism alliance with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, “to boost coordination with neighbours to tackle what it says is a growing domestic militant threat.” Fang Fenghui, a member of the powerful Central Military Commission that controls China's armed forces, had hosted a meeting with his counterparts on Wednesday in Urumqi, capital of the western Xinjiang region. Now let us come to the first question - that of whether terrorism in Kashmir should be seen strictly as a bilateral affair? The answer to this should be seen along with two other important developments concerning Pakistan today (Thursday) itself. Just imagine what an Indian home minister would have done in his response to such an welcome (and here, one is not looking at the demonstrations against his visit by the all the hardcore terrorist organisations based in Pakistan) by his Pakistani counterpart? Viewed thus, Singh’s was a fitting response. The use of blame game has not benefited anyone for the past six decades.” He said that “like the attacks in Pathankot, Kabul, Mumbai and Dhaka, Pakistan too has lost many innocent lives due to terrorism. “Using torture against innocent children and violence against civilians qualifies as terrorism,” said the Pakistani minister, adding that there was a need to end an “extremist” mindset. In his introductory address, Khan lambasted the "use of excessive force to suppress protests in held Kashmir”, without naming the Indian government. Let me answer the second question first. It all began with Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the host. Secondly, was it Singh who raised it first in the Islamabad meeting? Is terrorism in Kashmir a bilateral matter? It has been argued by some analysts that Singh should not have raised what are essentially bilateral issues between India and Pakistan at an international meeting.
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