How the Pakistanis ate crow & take-away food -Indian Express reports.
Chidanand Rajghatta
WASHINGTON, JULY 5: The anniversary of the American independence, is marked by festivity and a dazzling display of fireworks in Washington. But for Pakistan, there was no joy on this day. It was a different kind of ordeal by fire.
In an abject capitulation following the failure of what was universally regarded as foolhardy and overreaching adventurism, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday flew suddenly and unexpectedly to Washington -- to eat crow.
Why Sharif suddenly decided to back off and smoke the peace pipe is something that took everyone by surprise and is still being deciphered. But US officials here made it clear that the Washington meeting happened at Sharif's urgent insistence, amid signs of panic.
In fact, the White House had no inkling of the Pakistani desperation on Saturday as the capital readied for the Fourth of July weekend celebrations. Clinton himself was relaxing at home and was scheduled to go on a domestic trip starting Monday (also a holiday).
Sharif was playing cricket at the Bagh-e-Jinnah (Jinnah Park) on Saturday morning, when, according to one account, he was relayed the news of India's imminent capture of the strategic Tiger Hill and a possible rout in the coming days.
Coming on top of worldwide condemnation, a spiraling economic crisis and China's refusal to back Islamabad among other setbacks, Sharif decided to call off his Kargil gambit. He phoned the White House to seek a meeting with President Clinton and engineer a face-saving withdrawal.
According to US officials, Sharif asked the President if he could come to Washington ''on an urgent basis'' to personally discuss some matters. The President proposed Sunday afternoon, although it was a national holiday, because he would be out of town the following week.
Soon after, US officials said, the President also called Prime Minister Vajpayee ''to brief him on these developments and to make sure he was fully informed as to what our intentions were''. (Clinton would later call him again midway through histhree-hour talks with Sharif to brief him about the progress of the talks).
Meanwhile, Sharif, reflecting Pakistan's parlous economic state (and more practical sense than delusional Indian leaders wallowing in sinecures) took a commercial Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight from Islamabad to New York, and commandeered it to Washington (the aircraft then flew on to its scheduled destination).
So sudden and unexpected was the decision to travel that the Pakistani Ambassador in Washington, Riaz Khokhar, who was away in New Orleans, was caught unawares. The other high ranking Pakistani diplomat, Ambassador Ahmad Kamal at the UN, had retired on June 30, leaving Islamabad's mandarins in a tizzy.
Landing at the Dulles International Airport around noon on Sunday, Sharif and his 20-member entourage drove to the White House and were quickly hustled into Blair House, a modest red brick mansion across the street where top US officials sometimes brief foreign leaders.
Blair House, in fact, was familiar digsto another generation of Pakistani mandarins and military brass. This was where US officials first ambushed a slackjawed Benazir Bhutto in 1989 with incontrovertible evidence of a Pakistani nuclear bomb -- a development that later led to the Pressler Amendment.
On this day, the topic was less explosive but as lethal: Pakistani intrusion across the LoC. As the President and his team of National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott, Assistant Secretary Karl Inderfurth, and White House Advisor Bruce Riedel sat across the Pakistanis, they left them in no doubt who they believed.
The US had solid and clear evidence that Islamabad had crossed the rubicon and the onus was on it to back off or face the consequences.
After initial delegation level talks, Clinton and Sharif repaired to a one-on-one meeting with a note-taker.
Sharif did not get a quarter during the talks. From the joint statement, it is evident that pleas for US mediation and UN intervention were swiftly rejected and Islamabad was forced to accept the bilateral route.
The only concession made was Clinton's word that he would take ''personal interest'' in the bilateral efforts.
And that too came with a condition: ''Once the sanctity of the LoC has been fully restored.''
So peremptorily were the supplicating Pakistanis treated that the joke was they were not even offered lunch (the delegation ordered a $ 500 meal of kababs and tikkas from an Afghan take-out restaurant in a food factory in Ballston), let alone be hosted at the White House.
Twice during the talks US leaders broke off to brief their Indian counterparts about the developments. President Clinton himself had a ten-minute conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee after he finished his one-on-one with Sharif to give what US officials said was an ''interim read-out on where we were''; and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger called his opposite number Brajesh Mishra to brief him on the joint statement (Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott is expected to call Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh later tonight).
It was the kind of deference that nonplussed the most hawkish of Indian diplomats.
As a grim-looking Pakistani delegation emerged from Blair House, Clinton, dressed in holiday casuals, shook hands of each of them. As reporters yelled questions at them from a distance, Clinton drew Sharif's attention to the clamour, but the Pakistani Prime Minister dived into his limousine for a return journey to New York, from where he will go to London after an overnight stay.
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