Will India and Pakistan talks survive Pune bombing?

Saturday's bombing of the German bakery in Pune will test the resolve of Indian leaders to restart talks with Pakistan later this month. And does American David Headley have a connection to the Pune bombing, ask investigators.

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Will bombing derail peace talks?

The Pune bakery bombing occurred just two days after India and Pakistan, which suspended talks after 26/11, announced that their foreign secretaries would meet in India for a fresh round of negotiations on Feb. 25.

“The timing of the first major act of terrorism since 26/11 strongly indicates a likely motive: to ensure the forthcoming dialogue between India and Pakistan is sabotaged even before it has a chance to get off the ground,” said Siddharth Vardarajan, the strategic affairs editor of The Hindu.

S.M. Krishna, India’s external affairs minister, said the fate of the forthcoming talks hinged on the revelations of the forensic investigations of the bombing.

“We will look at the investigational reports and then decide on talks,” he told Indian reporters grimly. “India will not be cowed down by terrorism.”

For decades, Indo-Pak relations have remained hostage to the threat of terrorism.

India and Pakistan have gone through four rounds of peace talks, achieving modest gains on trade agreements and limited confidence building measures. The fifth round was underway when the Mumbai attacks occurred. The process stalled indefinitely after those attacks.

After months of heightened tensions, in July last year there was a slight thaw in the frosty Indo-Pak relations after both countries decided to restart the dialogue process.

After a meeting and friendly handshakes in Sharm el-Sheikh, an Egyptian resort, the leaders of both countries vowed to insulate the dialogue process from terrorism, which has often scuttled negotiations in the past. But the dialogue has barely inched forward, in large part because India blames Pakistan slow progress in apprehending LeT operatives involved in the Mumbai attacks.

After the Pune attacks, India’s main opposition party was quick to step up pressure on the government to abandon the upcoming round of talks.

“Terror and talks cannot co-exist. When terror threatens India, then not talking is also a legitimate diplomatic option,” said Arun Jaitley, a spokesperson for the opposition Bharatiya Janta Party. “The composite dialogue cannot proceed.”

But Mr. Doval says the Pune bombings make it imperative for India to talk to Pakistan, precisely to rebuff terrorist organizations that don’t favor détente between both countries.

“[Both countries] should definitely meet,” he says. “But they should talk about terrorism and terrorism alone. No meaningful progress on other outstanding issues can happen until that issue is first sorted.”