Addressing the 59th Formation Commanders Conference at the GHQ in Rawalpindi last Monday, President General Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistan could become an important regional trade hub and energy corridor if the government adhered to its progressive and pragmatic policies.
As a matter of fact, ever since the emergence of the Central Asian Republics as independent states, our foreign policy mandarins have been dreaming of making Pakistan the gateway to the resource-rich but land-locked Central Asia. It was in expectation of the realisation of that dream that Islamabad started work on mega projects in Bolochistan such as the deep-sea Gwadar port and the Coastal Highway.
Pakistan's policy being India-centric due to the unresolved dispute over Kashmir and the wars it triggered, they also sought 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan to make up for the country's lack of physical width. Hence, Islamabad got deeply involved in Afghanistan's internecine conflict, nurturing the Taleban and backing their march on and capture of Kabul.
And the military establishment launched the Kargil adventure in Kashmir at a time the civilian government had adopted a 'pragmatic' approach towards India, initiating a meaningful peace dialogue.
The policies in Afghanistan and Kashmir, however, ended in a fiasco. The rise and then a calamitous fall of the Taleban changed things radically. Subsequently, events of 9/11 impacted no other part of the world as much as they did this region. The change in the geopolitical situation has coincided with India's advent as a rising economic power, which badly needs new sources of energy as well as markets.
Both developments have compelled a rethink in Islamabad, and consequently a shift in emphasis from projection of military power to the country's potential as a regional trade hub and energy corridor. Indeed, the new policy is 'pragmatic' and 'progressive'.
A major corollary of this change is Islamabad's stress on the need to show flexibility on the Kashmir issue. It has moved away from its traditional stance of demanding resolution of the issue in accordance with UN resolutions and is promoting a proposal for five self-governing units in Kashmir along ethnic and geographical rather than religious lines, with a common parliament and a role for both Pakistan and India.
And as per New Delhi's own acknowledgement, 'cross-border infiltration' has lessened to a great extent. Also, it is backing moderate leaders within the APHC instead of the hard-line Ali Shah Gilani, who is still stuck on the UN resolutions and is accusing the moderate APHC leadership as well as Islamabad of working towards an unsavoury compromise with New Delhi. For its part, New Delhi shows a lot of enthusiasm for various confidence-building measures, in particular expansion of trade ties.
It is in the process of building various infrastructure projects to facilitate trade expansion and is equally, if not more, keen to participate in energy projects routed through Pakistan such as Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline, Qatar gas pipeline and, of course, the Iranian gas pipeline.
Because of the tremendous trade and energy opportunities that have become available, India no longer views Pakistan in bi-lateral terms alone, but also as an energy and trade corridor to Central Asia as well as some Gulf countries.
Hence, it has begun to show signs of flexibility on Kashmir. If that sounds an overoptimistic view, it is pertinent to note what APHC leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, who along with some other prominent Kashmiri leaders recently met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has been saying during the recent days.
Visiting Pakistan for the third time in little over a year - which in itself is rather unusual - he said he is optimistic about some sort of a solution emerging in the current year.
Surely, he knows about the current thinking in both Islamabad and New Delhi a lot better than any of the armchair opinion leaders predicting persistence of the status quo.