- Back channel diplomacy and global pressure behind move
The Pakistani commerce minister has reportedly been asked to attend the March19-20 session of World Trade Organisation in Delhi, an out of the blue development as the comprehensive dialogue between the two countries had broken down since ages, with Sartaj Aziz the last dignitary to visit India in December 2016. In the backdrop of familiar verbal matches and firing on the Line of Control, a secret ground breaking meeting took place in Bangkok in the last week of December 2017 between National Security Advisers Nasir Janjua and Ajit Doval (said to have been followed by many others) at a time when even the military hotline, a device to cool down overheated tempers, was being used to accuse and threaten each other with surgical strikes and immediate matching ripostes.
That meeting process must be taken as the initial step in melting the ice, if such it really turns out to be. In another Delhi visit kept under wraps, four Pakistani counter-terrorism and intelligence experts were hosted by the Indians under Shanghai Cooperation Organisation multilateral umbrella from January 31-February 2. On Friday last, the Pakistani prime minister, Afghan and Turkmenistan presidents and Indian minister of state for external affairs inaugurated a ‘peace pipeline’ to supply gas to the energy-starved region. It must frankly be acknowledged that regional and global countries are fed up with eternal Indo-Pak disputes which tend to dominate agendas and stymie any potential achievements of multilateral forums, and they have possibly put pressure on the antagonists for a more calibrated and realistic stance. Remember, the November 2016 Islamabad eight-member SAARC summit was cancelled on these inimical grounds.
The Foreign Office has not condescended to furnish any comments on or details of the Indian invitation so far. But without compromising its basic position on the right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination, Pakistan must respond positively to such overtures, in the interest of regional peace, trade and prosperity. As peace process proceeds one expects India to halt its daily repression, torture and killings of innocent Kashmiri youth, and establish a framework within which Siachen and Sir Creek, at least, can be de-militarised to mutual economic befit.
