ISLAMABAD: External affairs minister S Jaishankar had “casual conversations’’ with both Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif and his counterpart Ishaq Dar over the past 2 days even though there was no formal bilateral meeting between the foreign ministers on the margins of the SCO heads of government summit in Islamabad, diplomatic sources said. The fact that the first visit by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in almost 9 years went off without a hitch was seen as a positive development by the Indian government.
As he departed after a 24-hour stay in Islamabad from the Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi, Jaishankar, who had said recently India isn’t passive on Pakistan and will react to positive and negative developments accordingly, thanked Shehbaz and Dar in a post on X for the hospitality and courtesies.
While Indian government sources described the talks as casual conversations, Pakistan officials said there was a brief pull aside, which lasted for 5 to 7 minutes, between Jaishankar and Dar on the sidelines of the dinner hosted by Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday evening. Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi, who is also the chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), is learnt to have joined Jaishankar and Dar.
A source speaking on condition of anonymity said Pakistan suggested resumption of bilateral cricketing ties as a way of “breaking the ice”. Naqvi was later quoted as saying that Jaishankar’s visit was an ice-breaker even though neither side proposed a bilateral meeting. Pakistan is looking to host the Champions Trophy next year and would like India to participate.
The relationship between the 2 countries has remained in deep-freeze since the abortive bid to resume the dialogue process in 2015 under the new name of comprehensive bilateral dialogue. Things only worsened after Pakistan recalled its high commissioner in August 2019, following India’s decision to revoke the special status of J&K.
Indian government sources appreciated the fact that Shehbaz didn’t rake up any bilateral issue in his remarks as the host of the summit. While Jaishankar’s remarks on terrorism were seen as a message for Pakistan, Indian sources said the minister had only spoken about issues that the SCO has identified as key challenges and that other member-states can also relate to.
Jaishankar is learnt to have had another extended conversation with Dar at the SCO lunch table on Wednesday where both were seated next to each other. “It wasn’t initially planned that way but later they sat together and spoke over lunch in the presence of other delegates,’’ said.
Both sides denied that there was any proposal for resumption of dialogue. Shehbaz and Indian PM Narendra Modi are expected to come face to face next month at COP29 in Azerbaijan but for any substantive engagement, India will want Pakistan to first reappoint high commissioner.
After his return from Pakistan, Jaishankar said in another post on X that India made a positive and constructive contribution to the talks in Islamabad and identified 8 takeaways from India’s perspective from the documents that were signed. These included upholding fair and balanced connectivity projects in accordance with international law, the goals and principles of the UN Charter and SCO Charter and a fair, open, inclusive and transparent multilateral trading system with WTO at its core.
Significantly, another Pakistan minister, Ahsan Iqbal, had told visiting Indian journalists on Tuesday that Pakistan wants the 2 countries to return to the 1999 Lahore Declaration that called upon both sides to refrain from intervening and interfering in each other’s internal affairs. Shehbaz’s brother Nawaz Sharif, who reached the agreement with then Indian PM A B Vajpayee, has repeatedly accused former president Pervez Musharraf of scuttling the Declaration through his Kargil adventurism.
