First National Security Policy: Pakistan talks peace with India — Geopolitical quake or storm in a teacup?
Pakistan’s first-ever National Security Policy that is scheduled to be unveiled on Friday has some interesting insights that shed a ray of optimism in the bilateral relations between the countries. It envisages peace with immediate neighbours including India to foster economic diplomacy. The ‘peace’ is to encourage two-way trade and investment, albeit without a final settlement of the Kashmir issue.
The 100-page five-year policy document will cover a period between 2022 and 2026 and will remain primarily confidential. However, Pakistan PM Imran Khan will unveil 50 pages of the non-confidential policy points. According to Pakistan’s Dunya News, the main points of the non-confidential part will include economy, military and human security. As per reports, economic security has been given a central position in the documents and to achieve that the Imran Khan government realises the necessity to maintain peaceful relations with immediate neighbours. According to local media reports, a Pakistan government official told reporters in Islamabad on Tuesday that the country is “not seeking hostility with India for the next 100 years”.
“The new policy seeks peace with immediate neighbours,” the official reportedly said, adding that both the counties are looking at a period of normalising trade and business ties. While economic security is the central theme of the policy, “geo-economics does not necessarily mean we overlook our geo-strategic and geo-political interests,” the official reportedly added.
The reports further quote the official saying that the long-standing Kashmir conflict has been identified as a ‘vital national policy’ issue for Pakistan. The disputed territory has been the primary bone of contention and things reached a virtual deadlock between India and Pakistan for the past two and half years since India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. After the Modi-led government abrogated Article 370 and 35A, Pakistan reacted by suspending all diplomatic ties and stopping bilateral trade with India.
Kashmir is just one issue, albeit the most crucial one, over which the countries have been eyeball-to-eyeball. The issues that stemmed up during the formation of Pakistan and have been brushed under the carpet are yet to reach any resolution and closure. While the past indicates that differences have been consistently rising between the neighbours, some semblance of normalcy and de-escalation was witnessed in February last year, when both the countries agreed to reinforce a ceasefire understanding along the Line of Control (LoC). However, that was that and there was no further progress that could reflect onto other bilateral understandings.
However, the document leaves an open door for trade and economic ties between the countries even without a final settlement of the longstanding Kashmir dispute as long as there is progress in the talks between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, as per a report in The Express Tribune.
The National Security Policy’s cabinet approval was announced by Pakistani National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf a fortnight ago. “This umbrella document will, over time, help guide sectoral policies for the fulfilment of our national security objectives,” Yusuf tweeted.
After the NSC’s endorsement of Pakistan’s first-ever National Security Policy yesterday, the Cabinet has approved it today. It is a truly historic achievement; a citizen-centric comprehensive Nat. Sec. policy with economic security at the core will now be pursued in earnest.
As the approach shifts from geo-strategic to geo-economics, the question now is whether the world can dare to hope and be optimistic about the relationship between the two nuclear-powered arch-rivals that have been at each other’s throats for three-quarters of a century.
