Why not own up the blunder, Mr.PM?

How can you defend the undefendable? The Sharm-al-Sheikh joint statement is a fiasco for Indian foreign policy to anybody with a little understanding of English. What possible interpretation can you draw from the statement "action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed"? Yet, the PM now claims that there would be no composite dialogue. But, there needs to be engagement of some form! The MoS for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor claims - "The joint statement is a diplomatic paper that is given to the press, it is not legally binding." This is nothing short of hilarious. Doesn't such changing of stances reflect the lack of cohesion in our policy execution?

It seems that the final statement was designed to be read in two ways, as convenient to India or Pakistan. From Pakistan's point of view - they want to tie action on terrorism to the the composite dialogue resumption, while India would like it the other way round. Now, the statement can be read either way :). But under what pressure did the government have to take such an ambiguous position? After all, enough face-saving concession was made to Pakistan with this sentence: "Both leaders agreed that terrorism is the main threat to both countries. Both leaders affirmed their resolve to fight terrorism and to cooperate with each other to this end." Pakistan has already been elevated to the status of a vitim of terrorism.

Finally to the Balochistan howler. The statement says, "Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas." Now, what was the need to mention this? What does it mean? Our foreign policy mandarins say that since the Pak Prime Minister brought up the issue, and India had nothing to hide it was mentioned in the statement. Well, no lay person takes a joint statement between two heads of state as a "minutes of meeting", its supposed to be a policy statement. The other version is that our foreign policy establishment won a great "diplomatic victory" by avoiding the Kashmir issue in the statement. And what is the compromise for that - the mention of Balochistan. What a brainwave!

The Govt and the Prime Minister must own up its mistake. Its difficult, but isn't it better to undo it now than cause potential problems later. Anyway, the Foreign Secretary has already shown the solution. He confessed that the statement was "badly drafted". Why is he still there after that statement? The immediate course correction should be to ask him to put in his papers.