Husain Haqqani (top), Nirupama Rao

Washington, Nov. 21: A new window of opportunity for improving relations with Pakistan, which may have added value to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s personal initiatives for better bilateral ties, appears to be closing with the “memogate” scandal that may claim the head of Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington.

In a quiet diplomatic gesture that was pregnant with possibilities, India’s new ambassador to the US, Nirupama Rao, invited Haqqani a few weeks ago to her residence to celebrate Diwali and the Pakistani envoy readily responded.

The opening of a new channel of communication with Islamabad through the Indian embassy here would have complemented the already strong working relationship between the permanent missions of India and Pakistan to the UN in New York.

Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, said on record during a visit to Karachi a few weeks ago that India played a “vital role” in his country’s election to the Security Council for a two-year term starting on January 1 next year. The Indian initiative in New York produced results that could be far-reaching.

In his very first remarks after his country’s successful bid last month to get into the Security Council, Haroon set at rest fears that the two South Asian neighbours would be at each other’s throats in the Council. Haroon proclaimed that he plans to work “especially with India” and that “good working relations” are being developed between the two sides.

If India’s permanent representative to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, convinced South Block that New York was an ideal location away from the inevitable pressures and spotlight in New Delhi and Islamabad to conduct meaningful talks with Pakistan on issues other than purely bilateral ones, Rao’s opening to Haqqani was meant to reinforce that line given Washington’s perennial interest in a South Asian rapprochement.

Any outreach by Rao towards Pakistan has ramifications that go beyond any courtesy extended by an ordinary Indian ambassador to the US. Rao recently relinquished charge as India’s foreign secretary who was hands-on in direct dealings with Islamabad.

Besides, it is well known that a mere phone call from Rao to her Pakistani counterpart, Salman Bashir, has been enough on several recent occasions to untangle potentially difficult roadblocks in day-to-day engagement with Islamabad.

Like Haroon and Puri who have developed an intense rapport in New York, Rao and Bashir forged a chemistry when the two were concurrently serving as ambassadors in Beijing before both diplomats became foreign secretaries of their respective governments.

Had Haqqani not become embroiled in “memogate,” Rao’s efforts to complement the engagement between Puri and Haroon could have become the icing on the diplomatic cake that Manmohan Singh is determined to bake as his legacy through concrete forward movement in relations between India and Pakistan.

With his back to the wall, Haqqani is defending himself against charges that he passed on a note seeking the Obama administration’s assistance to rein in Pakistan's military and avert a coup d’etat after the May raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The army is furious about the alleged note.

So as not to step on sensitive diplomatic toes and to create a smokescreen that conceals any unusual activity, Rao did not invite Haqqani alone. She invited all the South Asian ambassadors in Washington to her Diwali evening which was also attended by Indian Americans and some prominent Americans who are of diverse ethnicity.

Perhaps aware of Rao’s intentions and in order not to undercut Haqqani on this special occasion, most of the South Asian envoys sent their deputy chiefs of mission. One ambassador thoughtfully sent his wife with the regret that he was away in Texas.

As a result, Haqqani got his due and was much sought after by Indian Americans, tremendously improving the atmospherics for any follow-up dialogue between him and Rao. But such a cultivated attempt at a diplomatic success now lies in a shambles with Haqqani’s continuation in Washington in doubt.

Conspiracy theorists believe that the army wants its own man in Washington and that career diplomats in Islamabad are eyeing Haroon’s job as well, especially with the profile that Pakistan’s Security Council membership will bestow on its permanent representative in New York next year. Haroon may have won a reprieve with Pakistan’s election to the Security Council, for which his unconventional approaches at the UN deserve some credit.

But Haqqani appears to have been naïve in allowing himself to be used by Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz in advancing his personal agenda of worming into the Obama administration’s confidence by offering himself as an emissary of the civilian government in Islamabad during the critical period after the killing of Osama bin Laden.

A decade ago, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government learnt a bitter lesson when Ijaz approached the NDA government with pretensions that he had Washington’s official backing and proposed trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir as one of the solutions for the dispute over the state’s accession to India.

Ijaz later hogged a lot of international publicity by insinuating that he had a role in the Vajpayee government’s ceasefire in Kashmir. He has also claimed to have brokered talks between Sudan and the Clinton administration on Osama bin Laden’s possible extradition to the US and said that he was an adviser to Nelson Mandela’s “unity government” in South Africa.

If Haqqani is forced to leave his post in Washington, it will not be the first time that the possibility of an India-Pakistan opening through Washington will become closed. In 2006, Mahmud Ali Durrani was appointed as Islamabad’s envoy here: he was known as “General Shanthi” for his advocacy of peace with India.

But his tenure was cut short with President Asif Ali Zardari sending Haqqani to replace him. Unlike Rao’s initiative now, no effort was made during Durrani’s time to open a channel for bilateral peace.