NEW DELHI: The secret is out! Soon after the cease-fire agreement announced by militaries of India and Pakistan, Foreign Minister of UAE Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed visited New Delhi the next day and held a secret meeting with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. A top notch official spilled the beans on the condition of anonymity and said,
“India-Pakistan cease-fire marked a high point in covert talks brokered by the UAE that kicked off couple of months earlier. The cease-fire will pave the way for a larger roadmap to forge a lasting peace between the neighbours, both of which have nuclear weapons and spar regularly over a decades-old territory dispute.”
Now, both the nations are mulling ways to build trust and confidence. And the first move in this direction is reinstating envoys in New Delhi and Islamabad, who were called back in 2019 after Pakistan protested India’s move to revoke Article 370 in Kashmir. The move will be followed by resumption of bilateral dialogue to restart trade and a permanent solution to Kashmir problem. The peace overtures by both the nations in the past have fallen flat in the past. And current expectations are only confined to resumption of trade via Punjab border.
