New Delhi/March,23: Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood returned Delhi late Thursday night obviously to attend the Pakistan National Day celebrations which he is likely to host Friday. While the Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs, M J Akbar, has been invited to attend the event as chief guest, government sources here said that it was possible some other minister of the same rank might be present there in place of Akbar.
While diplomatic sources here expressed hope that Mahmood’s return will help turn down the heat in ties, both New Delhi and Islamabad continued to accused each other of bullying diplomats. India issued yet another note verbale Thursday saying that several Indian officials were aggressively tailed by Pakistan authorities in Islamabad.
Pakistan too issued a note verbale Thursday for “harassment and intimidation’’ of its diplomats. Pakistan has for the first time accused India of harassing diplomats’ children and believes the nature and scale of intimidation this time is vastly different from what has been seen earlier.
Mahmood returned to India exactly a week after Pakistan announced that it was calling him back for consultations over alleged harassment and intimidation of its diplomats here. Mahmood’s absence at the event on Friday would have been seen by India as a deliberate act of escalation by Pakistan. India has continued to maintain that at no stage did it contemplate any move to recall its high commissioner Ajay Bisaria.
Pakistan media had on March 17 quoted anonymous sources in Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to say that Mahmood was “not going to return to India anytime soon’’ or “until the overall situation improves’’. An Indian official described it as just another pressure tactic used by Pakistan after it decided to pull out of the WTO ministerial earlier this week.
While Pakistan commerce minister Pervaiz Malik called off his participation at the last minute to protest the alleged harassment of Pakistan officials, the event was attended by a senior Pakistan diplomat based here.
As both countries issue one note verbale after another, India and Pakistan are clearly facing one of the worst crises to have hit bilateral ties in recent times. As former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan TCA Raghavan said, the ongoing hostility is symptomatic of the overall situation between the 2 countries which is marked by LoC hostility and absence of any high-level engagement. Such allegations of harassment and intimidation have not been seen since 2003, said Raghavan. “Pakistan has been internally adrift since Nawaz Sharif was removed from power and that’s probably is the reason for the present situation,” said Raghavan.
While Pakistan has accused India of using the current crisis for what it describes as short term political gains in the absence of any high-level dialogue, Raghavan said the Narendra Modi government would have probably addressed the situation if Sharif was still around.
