This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 000355 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/12/2015 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER IN PK INDO PAK

SUBJECT: MEA UPBEAT ON INDO-PAK, DESPITE SLOW PACE 
  REF: NEW DELHI 303 
  Classified By: PolCouns Geoff Pyatt,  Reasons 1.5 (B,D). 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary: The Indian Foreign Ministry remains  optimistic about Indo-Pak relations, despite slow progress in  the recent round of the Composite Dialogue, MEA Joint  Secretary (Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran) Arun K Singh told 
  SIPDIS  PolCouns and Poloffs on January 12.  ""The process has  momentum,"" he argued, despite a lack of dramatic progress in  the recent round.  He suggested that Islamabad's interest in  CBMs via people-to-people exchanges was limited to Punjab,  and observed that PM Aziz had been given the role of ""bad  cop"" to Musharraf's ""good cop"" on Indo-Pak issues.  He  insisted that setbacks, such as Pakistan's threat to bring  the Baglihar Dam dispute to arbitration, lack of visible  action against Kashmir-oriented terrorist infrastructure, and  refusal to grant transit rights for Indian aid to Afghanistan  (septel), ""will not derail"" the overall peace process.  He  gave Islamabad partial credit for the decline in terrorist  infiltration over the past few months, but emphasized that  the GOP had taken no action against terrorist infrastructure  or communications.  Singh pointed to a busy itinerary of  bilateral meetings this spring, including FM Natwar Singh's  February trip to Pakistan, and offered that the interruption  in backchannel meetings following the death of NSA Dixit  would be more than offset by the continuation of the  Composite Dialogue and other bilateral meetings.  Commenting  on the upcoming Pakistani cricket team's tour of India in  February-April, he predicted that it would be a media and  people-to-people success, but would not measure up to last  year's groundbreaking Pakistan tour by the Indian team.  End  Summary. 
  MEA Upbeat from Top to Bottom 
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¶2.  (C) MEA Joint Secretary (Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran) 
Arun K Singh opened our January 12 discussion of New Delhi's  relations with Islamabad by reporting that both FM Natwar  Singh and FS Shaym Saran remained upbeat on the dialogue  process.  The recent flare-up regarding the GOP's threat to  bring the Baglihar Dam issue to arbitration (reftel) was  ""unhelpful, but would not derail the dialogue,"" Singh said,  because ""it has momentum."" 
  GOP Turning ""People-to-People"" into ""Punjabi-to-Punjabi"" 
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¶3.  (C) Singh downplayed Pakistani FM Kasuri's January 3  proposal to open a new Indo-Pak border crossing near Ferozpur  as aimed to benefit his own constituency, criticizing the GOP  for only being interested in promoting ""Punjabi-to-Punjabi""  exchanges that are not replicated ""for Sindh or elsewhere.""  He claimed that the Munnabao-Khokhrapar train connection  would have been a done deal if it had connected the two  Punjabs and not Sindh-Rajasthan.  Likewise, he insisted that  Islamabad is the obstacle to opening the  Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus line, although he indicated that a  deal on the bus should still be doable. 
  MEA View of Pak Leadership: ""Good Cop/Bad Cop"" 
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¶4.  (C) Describing the MEA's view of the GOP, Singh called  the Indian media ""obsessed with Pakistan, first Musharraf and  then PM Aziz.""  Musharraf is casting himself as more  ""reasonable"" while Aziz, who ""comes off as modern,  professional, but hardline,"" now ""plays hardball.""  For  example, the MEA saw Aziz as the driving force behind efforts  to bring the Baglihar Dam dispute to arbitration, obstructing  the linkage between trade normalization and the  Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline ""that Musharraf and Manmohan  Singh agreed to in New York,"" and placing Kashmir ahead of  normalizing trade ties.  ""They are playing good cop/bad cop,""  Singh concluded, while claiming that Aziz's personal and  private views are much more accommodating than those of the  Pakistani President. 
  GOP Helping Curb Violence in Kashmir, but Not Camps 
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¶5.  (C) Turning to Kashmir, Singh cited two reasons for the  ""significant decline"" in infiltration rates as reported by  the GOI: ""we are more organized"" (i.e. the LOC fencing and  better military preparations are working), and ""Pakistan is  also taking action.""  That said, he pointed to the January  7-8 suicide attack on a government building in Srinagar as  evidence that terrorist groups maintain the capacity to  execute dramatic attacks and that ""the issue of camps and  other infrastructure remains.""  Singh then showed us an  internal GOI paper on terrorist camps in Pakistan and  Pakistani Kashmir (septel).  He noted that cross-border  terrorist communications are undiminished, with ISI handlers  exhorting their jihadist clients to fight on. 
 
¶6.  (C) The Indian journalists who traveled to Pakistani  Kashmir November 19-December 1 gave ""fairly reliable reports""  of Kashmiri terrorists who ""are tired and want to come back,""  Singh said.  Remarking on the difficulty of managing  re-integration on a large scale, he added that the GOI  nevertheless wanted them ""back in the fold"" and to help  ""evict the Punjabis and Pashtuns."" 
  Backchannel Dormant While Front Channel Races Ahead 
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¶7.  (C) Waving away press speculation about the state of the  backchannel, Singh informed us that Pakistani NSA Tariq  Aziz's recent visit to New Delhi was strictly a condolence  call: ""He saw only the FM, the PM, and Mrs. Dixit.""  He  called it ""an important gesture,"" but underlined that nothing  of substance was discussed. 
 
¶8.  (C) Turning to the slate of bilateral talks, Singh  predicted that there would be ""concrete outcomes"" to announce  by next summer's meeting of the two Foreign Secretaries,  though he did not mention any specific agenda items as being  ripe for agreement.  Singh recounted that the Composite  Dialogue and technical talks would resume later in January  and conclude when the Foreign Secretaries meet in July.  A  Joint Study Group on trade, originally slated for January  24-25, would be pushed back to around February 22-23 at the  request of his Pakistani MFA counterpart D/G for South Asia  Jalil Abbas Jilani, he said.  ""The schedule of meetings is  exhausting,"" Singh explained, with the next major event the  FM visit to Pakistan (although the dates are still not firm). 
  Spring in South Asia, When a Man's Fancy Turns to Cricket 
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¶9.  (C) Singh predicted that the Pakistan cricket team's  February 25-April 18 India tour, though yet another positive  and confidence-building development, would not make as big a  splash as last year's Indian team in Pakistan.  ""This is  continuity now, not a new development,"" he explained. 
  Comment 
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¶10.  (C) Even when discussing contentious issues such as  Baglihar Dam and terrorism in Kashmir, Singh remained calm  and measured throughout the conversation, expressing  disappointment but not issuing blame.  In fact, his comment  that ""Pakistan is also taking action"" against terrorist  infiltration -- whether or not he firmly believes it -- is a  noticeable break with the host of officials and pundits who  credit the decline largely to the Army and the LOC fence. 
This presentation came off as much more than just an  optimistic spin for US consumption, and suggests that the  policy levels of the MEA are firm in supporting the peace  process despite continuing violence and infiltration in  Kashmir.  Singh did not let on to whether his prediction that  ""concrete progress"" would be made in time for the July  Foreign Secretaries' meeting was grounded in anticipation  that New Delhi would yield on certain issues, belief that  Islamabad would do so, or hope that the two sides would find  some modus vivendi.  His focus on front-channel diplomacy may  also reflect an MEA effort to ensure that the high level  diplomacy conducted by late NSA Dixit is now moved firmly  back to the hands of MEA's mandarins. 
MULFORD