How Pak gains from cancelled NSA talks

India having arrested or put under house arrest all the separatist leaders, there was no reason for seeking an assurance from the Pakistan National Security Adviser (NSA) that they would not meet the separatists.

Taking a cue from the popular movie Kung Fu Panda, wherein the Kung Fu master tells the panda that he is free to eat if he can get hold of the food, the Pakistanis were free to meet the separatists if they could get hold of them! Having cleared this, with both sides seemingly bent on cancelling the meet, overall who gained and who lost? With talks being limited to terrorism, India with a strong dossier on specific persons and groups with addresses and telephone numbers with travel records, had a decisive advantage over the Pakistanis who did not, and who in any case could not have produced such a detailed dossier on the alleged Indian hand in terrorism in Pakistan. That would have been to Pakistan’s disadvantage.

Dawood Ibrahim is listed in the Al-Qaida sanctions List. Persons listed in the Al Qaida sanctions list are subject to all the sanctions measures mandated by the UN Security Council through its various resolutions starting with UNSC 1267(1999). One of these measures pertains to assets freeze.

This requires the Member States to take appropriate measures, in accordance with domestic laws and practices, to ensure that no funds, financial assets or economic resources are made available directly or indirectly for the benefit of those listed in the sanctions list. The Security Council constituted a committee known as the “Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee”, also known as the 1267 Committee.

This Committee is supported in its work by an Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team which in June 2015 had the following to say about asset freeze: “in cases in which the current locations of the listed individuals are known and they are not imprisoned, it is difficult to understand how they can operate without any exempted finances.

How do they eat? How do they pay for accommodation or, if they own property, cover utility expenses alone? Under such circumstances, a legitimate question to ask is whether the State of residence is properly and fully implementing the Al-Qaida sanctions obligation. If the State of residence is allowing expenditure in breach of the assets freeze, without pre-notifying the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, that could constitute a breach of the obligations under the Al-Qaida sanctions regime.”

India has now ample documentary proof to establish that India has a strong case for projecting to the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee that Pakistan government’s inaction in this respect constitutes a breach of its Obligations under UN charter. Had the NSAs’ meeting taken place, India could have presented the documentary evidence to the Pakistan government and later to the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee.

It was not in Pakistan’s interest that the NSA meeting should take place. It is to their credit that they managed to do that by waving a red flag at the Indians through their first briefing on the planned NSA talks by mentioning their invitation to the Hurriyat leaders for a meeting in Delhi prior to the NSA talks. India took the bait and the rest is history. The main gainer from the cancelled talks was Pakistan.

By G Balachandran