All hopes for a positive outcome during talks between Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi were dashed when the latter, during a news briefing, revealed that India officials were not 'mentally prepared, for the talks a result the talks ended without any success.
Pakistani editors and analysts believe that India's stickiness to the sole issue of Mumbai attacks led to the failure of the talks.
Imtiaz Alam, editor of South Asian Journal, said: "I think these talks, from an Indian point of view, were focused on (American terror suspect David Coleman) Headley's revelations. India wanted Pakistan to take effective measures against those who were behind the terror strike in Mumbai. On the other hand, the Pakistani establishment was unresponsive to the Indian demands. On this one point, these negotiations failed."
When contacted, Rashid Rehman, editor of Daily Times said: "One should not expect more from these talks. When the Indian foreign minister was coming to Pakistan there were some hopes about a big breakthrough, but all hopes dashed when the Pakistani foreign minister revealed that India was not serious in talks."
Rashid added, "It is not necessary that talks could resolve differences on all issues, but it could reduce the tensions. One should start from the smaller issuesÂ… the major issues would be resolved automatically. The way Indians are stick to the issue of Mumbai terror attack, the deadlock will persist."
Newsline Editor Zahid Hussain, while talking to rediff.com said: "Nothing special has come from the talks; there was no breakthrough, just a deadlock. It was expected that these talks would bring the situation between the two countries to normal and the composite dialogue would resume, but it did not happen."
He said that it was clear well before Qureshi's statement that tension prevailed during the talks. "From the joint press conference one could easily imagine that there was tension during talks and I think, now, the deadlock will remain for very long now."
"India was not serious in the talks, which was clear from the statements of some Indian officials just ahead of the talks. Especially after Headley's revelation about ISI involvement in Mumbai carnage, I do not think there would be any change in the stance of Indians even if another phase of the talks takes place."
M Ziauddin, editor of The Express Tribune, said: "One can't say that this time India got the advantage in the talks. The situation between these two nations is impacting millions of people."
When asked whether Afghanistan was the real issue that makes India to talk to Pakistan he said, "If both countries accept from the core of their hearts that Afghanistan is a sovereign State and did not term it as their colony it would better for all. A stable Afghanistan could insure peace not only in Pakistan and India but also in the rest of south Asia."
Talking about the failure of the talks Muhammad Malick, editor of The News Islamabad, said: "Failure was obvious as India was not interested to talk anything else but the issue of terrorism. They knew that the world is watching so they created whole drama about Hafiz Saeed and others; they just tried to turn the bilateral dialogue into issues of security and terrorism. There was no reason why issues of Siachen and Kashmir should not be on the agenda but they were not."
