Indo-Pak NSA talks likely to resonate in Parliament today, Congress calls meeting a 'grand betrayal'

The meeting of the National Security Advisors of India and Pakistan held on Sunday is likely to resonate in Parliament on Monday. The Congress has slammed the Central government for its climbdown on its policy with Pakistan.

Hitting out at the Narendra Modi government, the Congress has said that the Centre needs to get its foreign policy in place before holding talks with Pakistan.

Congress even went on to the extent of questioning whether the meeting is an attempt by the Modi government to divert the country's attention away from the political and economic challenges as also widespread agrarian crisis across India.

Modi government has, however, neither spelt out the specifics nor the framework for engagement with Pakistan or taken Parliament or political parties into confidence, Surjewala added. "It's been a constant series of flip-flops since May 2014 which doesn't inspire great enthusiasm about the NSA meeting at Bangkok," he said.

Congress had on Sunday termed the secret meeting of the NSAs as a "grand betrayal" of the Modi government. "It's a grand betrayal. It's a betrayal of everything that this government has ostensibly, publicly espoused," Congress leader Manish Tewari said.

Asked about the meeting between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Pakistani counterpart Nasir Janjua in Bangkok, Tewari said this is absolutely "crowning glory" after two sides had engaged in mutual blame game earlier resulting in cancellation of talks.

"If you look at the track record of this government over the past 18 months, their Pakistan policy has been an extravaganza, a somersault, flip-flops and 180-degree U-turns and this is absolutely the crowning glory," he said.

Tewari said if the talks were so essential, government should have explained the rationale behind it and held it either in New Delhi or Islamabad. "If you felt that engagement with Pakistan is so essential, then the correct way to do it would be to stand up, explain the rationale and say that we have been making mistake after mistake in calling off the engagement with Pakistan and therefore, we are now going to persist with the broad spectrum engagement," he said.

On its part, BJP supported the NSA talks saying that it was in the spirit of Ufa statement by Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif.

"The spirit of the Ufa statement is exactly what we are seeing in play here...we have seen that the last two opportunities have not been translated into direct talks. The first between the foreign secretaries and the second one being just after Ufa between the NSAs, that got cancelled out. So, I think we need to see it in that context," BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said.

In a sudden breakthrough in the stalled Indo-Pak dialogue, the NSAs of the two countries met for four hours in Bangkok on Sunday and discussed terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir, and other bilateral issues and agreed to take forward the "constructive" engagement.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Pakistani counterpart Nasir Janjua, their foreign secretaries S Jaishankar and Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry held their marathon meeting in the Thai capital, barely six days after their Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif held a brief meeting in Paris obviously with a view to revive the stalled dialogue process.

A joint statement, issued after the meeting said, "Pursuant to the meeting of the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan in Paris, the NSAs, accompanied by the Foreign Secretaries, met in Bangkok today. Discussions were held in a candid, cordial and constructive atmosphere. They were guided by the vision of the two leaders for a peaceful, stable and prosperous South Asia. "Discussions covered peace and security, terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir, and other issues, including tranquility along the LoC. It was agreed to carry forward the constructive engagement."