Polaris A Takshashila Institution Blog on International Politics and Security

No, not those ones. The real leaders.

I never thought I would say this, but Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is right. Well, almost.

According to this report in The Indian Express, Qureshi dismissed the recent Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan, saying “If you want real progress it will have to come from the political leadership…It requires political will, the Foreign Secretaries can’t deliver.” In case we didn’t get his point, he drove it home further: “It’s the political leadership that gives or starts the way forward. Foreign Secretaries don’t do that.”

Apart from undermining the legitimacy of his own bureaucracy—making it seem as if Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir was playing rogue, or was at least irrelevant—the statement does put the spotlight on the longstanding question of who actually carries legitimacy within the Pakistani establishment. In other words, who should India be talking to?

In Qureshi’s version, this would be him, and perhaps Prime Minister Gilani. His statement may simply be his way of placing more emphasis on the upcoming Thimphu Summit. But a far better argument can be made that it is still Rawalpindi that is in charge or, at least, that GHQ holds veto power over any agreement with India. In which case, by Qureshi’s own logic, Indian interactions with the Gilani, not to mention Qureshi himself, are a waste of New Delhi’s time.

The Pakistani leadership—President Zardari, and  Gilani, but especially Army Chief Kayani—faces a choice. Either it should bestow upon Pakistan’s diplomats an authority to negotiate on behalf of the country, which would mean investing in them greater power and legitimacy than they currently appear to wield. Or General Kayani should save us all the bother and simply negotiate himself.