The next government of Pakistan will wait for India’s seriousness in engagement before moving for a step towards restarting dialogue, said veteran Pakistani diplomat Maleeha Lodhi.
Addressing a hybrid event on the February 8 election in Pakistan, organised by Chatham House of the United Kingdom, Ms. Lodhi who has served as Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations as well as Islamabad’s ambassador to Washington D.C., said that Pakistan’s relationship with the U.S. will have to find space within the Pakistan-China and India-U.S. relationships.
“Bilateral relations warmed when Nawaz Sharif was last in power. Relationship that Nawaz Sharif forged with Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped in easing tension. But here is a problem, it takes two to tango. We have to see how Delhi reacts to a new government because in recent years Delhi has shown no interest in normalising relation. The challenge has to be how two countries can engage when India refuses to talk about Kashmir. That is not accepted by Pakistan,” Ms. Lodhi said. She accused India of violating multiple UN Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir.
“There are UNSC resolutions just like there are resolutions on Palestine. In occupied Kashmir also India has completely ignored UNSC resolutions,” Ms. Lodhi said pointing out that the UNSC resolutions had called for maintaining status quo on the ground. “Ground situation [in Kashmir] changed by India’s actions. This will have to be addressed in some ways,” she added.
The election in Pakistan is being held weeks after Iran and Pakistan launched missiles on each other’s territories which they claimed was aimed at adversarial terror groups. The high tension exchange, Ms. Lodhi said has “damaged” relationship though she expressed satisfaction that the particular incident was contained. Ms. Lodhi painted the three front scenario that has opened up for Pakistan with continuing negative relation with India, and strained relation with Iran and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. She said that under the Taliban, the Tehreek E Taliban Pakistan has become more aggressive and has launched unprecedented attacks on Pakistani territory.
“The next government has to deal with the fraught relation with three neighbours. Pakistan’s goal is to avoid a two front scenario but now the situation is that there is unstable relation with three neighbours. Pakistan’s overriding priority has to be to create a healthy economy. Last thing that Pakistan wants is to have a hot border,” said Ms. Lodhi.
Ms. Lodhi described Pakistan’s relation with China as the important pillar of Pakistan’s foreign policy, and said Pakistan’s relation with the U.S. has cooled after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
“Pakistan’s overriding priority is its strategic relation with China. We need to keep this in view in context of the relation with the U.S. After departure of the U.S. from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s importance has gone down in Washington D.C. Both countries are looking towards post-election scenario in Pakistan and the U.S. to reset relationship. This reset will have to create space for Pakistan-U.S. relationship between the India-U.S. relation and China-Pakistan relation,” Ms. Lodhi said about the foreign policy tasks that the new government of Pakistan will have to deal with.
