Dump Hurriyat or NSA talks: Sushma Swaraj makes stellar comeback, puts Pakistan on the spot

Sushma Swaraj came up with a sterling performance at her press conference on Saturday evening when she cleverly drew the red lines for Pakistan over the NSA-level talks without unilaterally calling off the 23-24 August meeting between National Security Advisors of both the countries. This is, by far, one of the best performances ever by an Indian foreign minister.

The two most important red lines drawn by her are given in her quote: “If they are willing to come, we welcome them but we want an assurance from Pakistan that talks will only be on terror and the NSA will not meet the Hurriyat.”

Much like a smiling assassin, she killed Pakistan’s hopes that she had called her presser to announce cancellation of the NSA talks as her government had done a year ago with foreign secretary-level talks.

Swaraj deftly ploughed the ball back into Pakistan’s court and left it to Islamabad to decide whether Pakistani national security advisor, Sartaj Aziz, would finally be traveling to New Delhi on Sunday or not to hold talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval. And she did it with aplomb, even setting a deadline (Saturday midnight) for Pakistan to decide on Aziz’s trip.

The best thing about her press conference was that she did not duck or fudge any questions and made it clear over and over again that NSA talks will not take place if Sartaj Aziz were to stick to his two “pre-conditions” of discussing the Kashmir issue and meeting Kashmiri separatists in New Delhi.

Most important point is that she did not say that Aziz won’t be allowed to come to India. She only said that if Aziz were to go ahead with his twin pre-conditions, there won’t be any talks. She dismissed Sartaj Aziz’s argument made at his own press conference in Islamabad two hours prior to her presser that India was attaching “pre-conditions” for the talks and India was indulging in “media diplomacy”.

Sushma Swaraj reminded him that the Indian stance was derived from the Shimla spirit (that there will be no third party for talks between India and Pakistan) and the Ufa spirit (that the NSA talks in New Delhi will be held only on terror).

Sample her quote in this specific context: “Let him come first…My message to him in two sentences is: In the spirit of the Shimla agreement don’t make the Hurriyat or any third party part of the talks. And in the spirit of the Ufa agreement, don’t discuss anything but terrorism.”

Swaraj also blew into smithereens Aziz’s strong remark that they have a “dossier” on the activities of Indian external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and if he is unable to hand it over to the Indian side during his proposed talks with Doval Pakistan would definitely be doing so at the United Nations General Assembly.

She mocked at this remark saying in Hindi meaning thus: “Are dossiers handed over in such a cavalier manner while moving about in corridors?”

Swaraj twisted the knife when she said: “They are talking about dossiers. We will bring him face to face with their own man (Naved) who was sent by them to conduct terror strikes but was captured alive (in Udhampur)… Let them give us ‘dossiers’, we will give them live proof of terrorism.” She accused Pakistan of trying to run away from NSA talks from the very beginning and said: “They are running from the talks…Let them at least sit for talks. We will give them evidence of terrorism." She pointed out that the Ministry of External Affairs had proposed the dates of NSA talks to Islamabad on 24 July but the Pakistanis sat on it for 22 days to make their first reaction and when they eventually did it on 14 August they came up with a long list of agenda which was in violation of the spirits of Ufa as well as Shimla events.

After Sushma Swaraj’s straight talk Pakistan is left with only two options. One, to send Sartaj Aziz to India on Sunday anyway. This seems to be highly unlikely as Pakistan would have to eat crow and would suffer a loss of face.

Two, Pakistan announces “with regret” that Aziz won’t be traveling to India as NSA talks under the circumstances would be “meaningless”. This option seems more likely. Of course, while exercising this option Pakistan will project to the world that it is being forced to take this step in view of India’s “stubbornness”.

Whatever the fate of the NSA talks – and one should know it by tonight – one thing is clear. After a long time India has been able to match Pakistan’s art of scoring brownie points. The credit for this goes to Sushma Swaraj.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will do well to unleash the Sushma Swaraj missile at Pakistan next time.