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Norwegian PM Visit: THROWING THE GAUNTLET, By Dr.D.K.Giri, 16 January 2019 Print E-mail

Round The World

New Delhi, 16 January 2019

Norwegian PM Visit

THROWING THE GAUNTLET

By Dr.D.K.Giri

(Prof. International Politics JMI)

 

The Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s visit will be reflected upon more for her offer to broker peace between India and Pakistan than for a host of other issues concerning the relations between the two countries. Just before she was to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she spoke to the Press while inaugurating the new embassy building in New Delhi, “India and Pakistan must talk, there cannot be a military solution to the problem of Kashmir. We are ready to mediate if India and Pakistan are willing.”

 

Apparently, sensing Indians’ sensitivity to any third party involvement in Kashmir, she quickly retracted and had her ambassador in New Delhi ‘clarify the press reports in a tweet, “we have not been asked, nor have we offered to mediate”. In spite of the diplomatic make-up on a highly explosive issue, Norway’s offer of mediation was serious and their intent was clear. They are playing to their strength and cachet for peace-building.

 

Note that Norway along with Sweden presents the Noble Prize for Peace; it is a rich and a peaceful country. In the UN ranking of countries for happy living based on comparison of HDIs, Norway has been the number one for 13 consecutive years until Finland pushed it to the second position last year. It has, by far, the best conditions for living, life expectancy, and education backed by a robust public-funded universal health care system. Norwegians believe that, like themselves, people in other countries should live in peace and security too.

 

Understandably, in an interdependent as well as a globalised world, conflicts and violence anywhere will affect others through trade disruption, migration and asylum seeking and terrorism etc. The Norwegians realize this, though they have peaceful neighbors and are geographically far off from the hotspots of the world. That is why, perhaps, the Norwegians have a lot of peace-theorising and brokering. They have leading scholars like Johan Galtung in peace studies.

 

In 2018, Norway brokered successfully a peace accord between the Columbian government and the rebel group, Revolutionary Armed Forces Columbia (FARC), and negotiated peace between Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Separatist group (LTTE). The latter did not yield expected results as the Sri Lankan government forces were allowed to annihilate LTTE, by outside powers including India.

 

So quite arguably, Norwegian Prime Minister’s offer for mediation was neither innocent nor spontaneous; it was a well thought-out political initiative. Remember, only recently, on 23 November, 2018, former Prime Minister of Norway Kjell Magne Bondevik flew into Kashmir and crossed over to the other side of line of control (LOC) for talks. He met the Hurriyat leaders, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Bondevik’s visit would not have been possible without the concurrence of GOI, and the grapevine has it that, it had the blessings of the NSA, Ajit Duval.

 

In order to demystify their intent, to preclude reactions from hawks in Indian foreign policy establishment, the Norwegian Prime Minister did not own up Bondevik’s visit too. She said he runs the ‘Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution’; it was a private, a kind of study-visit and had no sanction from her government. It is fairly clear that Norway’s intent is serious in seeing India & Pakistan talk, and there is durable peace in the Indian sub-continent.

 

But how serious is Modi and his team in peace-talks with Pakistan? From New Delhi-concurred Bondevik’s visit and MEA’s non-reaction to Solberg’s mention of Kashmir, and offer of mediation etc. it appears that New Delhi seems to open up to friendly, powerful and peaceful countries on Kashmir, New Delhi wants the world to know the exact situation to counter the narratives like those in the UNHCHR Report on Kashmir.

 

Optimistically, there seems to be a silver lining behind the clouds of distrust and denials. Although Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan keeps harping on his willingness to talk on any issue including Kashmir and ‘de-legitimises’ violence as a tool to conflict resolution, his army is constantly aiding and abetting terrorism. New Delhi has been consistently maintaining that ‘terrorism and talks’ cannot go together and cessation of cross-border violence is a pre-condition to resumption of talks. So that is where the stalemate is situated.

 

The important part of Erna Solberg’s statement was that India and Pakistan should reduce their budget on defence and spend more on health and education. If both sides realise that ‘militarism’ is no solution, and Pakistan PM’s says, “In South Asia, we should fight poverty, not each other”, then we should appreciate Norwegian PM’s timely suggestions on military spending, which is a colossal and criminal wastage of our valued resources.

 

Do not India and Pakistan confront a daunting magnitude of their development tasks? These figures prove the point, USD 100 billion is spent per annum globally on nuclear weapons, whereas the same 100 billion USD is needed to end extreme poverty and provide primary education to everyone in the world. Likewise, a small percentage of their respect defence budgets can enormously contribute to healthcare and education both in India and Pakistan. It has been proved that “Nothing is more useless in developing the nation’s economy than a gun, and nothing blocks the road to social development as the financial burden of war.”

 

On India-Norway bilateral relations, the areas for cooperation are both deepening as well as expanding. Norway sees India as the largest democracy and one of the fastest growing economies. That is why Norwegian PM came with the biggest delegation ever for trade and business negotiations. She inaugurated the India-Norway Business Forum. She also delivered the inaugural address on Raisina Dialogue, on the theme ‘A World Re-Order: New Geometrics, Fluid Partnerships, Uncertain Outcomes’, though I must say that the theme was a bit heavy in diplomatic ontology.

 

Norway has invested 12 billion of its sovereign funds. Politically, it has been supported India for the membership of NSG and is supporting even for UNSC membership, and so on. Both countries have agreed to work for finalisation of a ‘comprehensive convention on international terrorism’ (CCIT); India’s initiative and need to do so. They signed a MoU on India-Norway Ocean Dialogue, to engage in blue economy, which is to jointly explore the use of marine resources.

In sum, the point to underline and the idea to reiterate is Norway nudging India and Pakistan to talk and go for peace rather than bloodshed. Many stakeholders in India-Pakistan peace talks have lauded Solberg mentioning Kashmir and offering to mediate. Pakistan may be amenable to the suggestion as Imran Khan has been hinting. Will India pickup the gauntlet?---INFA

 

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)

 

 

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