NEW DELHI : The continued bitter rhetoric over Kashmir notwithstanding, both India and Pakistan are exploring the possibility of a meeting between the National Security Advisers of the two countries in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly session towards the month end.
However, after the setback to the Ufa initiative due to the cancellation of the NSA talks which were to be held in new Delhi last month, there was no likelihood of any meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, both of whom would be in New York at the same time to attend the UNGA session.
The NSA talks fiasco has not shut the door on further engagement between the two countries, and a meeting between NSA Ajit Doval and Mr Sartaj Aziz, the Adviser to the Pakistan Prime Minister was not ruled out, according to sources.
The meeting between DG BSF and Pakistan Rangers, which was mooted in the Ufa joint statement released after the talks Mr Modi and Mr Sharif on the margins of the BRICS Summit in the Russian city, has after all taken place.
But a fresh engagement at the political level would not be a ”revived Ufa, but altogether a new initiative,” the sources said.
The Ufa declaration had failed to mention Kashmir as core issue due to which Mr Sharif had to face a lot of attack when he went back to Pakistan. So in the run up to the NSA talks, Pakistan started declaring that Kashmir would be high on the agenda of talks, while India said that as per the Ufa declaration, the NSA level talks were just confined to terror and related issues.
While assertion about Kashmir and rejection by India continued, none of the side backtracked from the talks, but the flash point reached when Pakistan invited Kashmiri separatist leaders ahead of the talks that were to be held on August 23 and 24. While India insisted that Mr Aziz would not meet the Kashmiri leaders, Pakistan said they were stakeholders and meeting them was not something new.
India said Mr Aziz was welcome to come but there would be no Kashmir on the agenda and no engagement with the separatists, but Pakistan said there would be no point in their NSA coming to India without these and called off the talks.
While announcing, Mr Aziz’s remarks two days ahead of the NSA talks, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj replying to a question as to whether, the possible cancellation of NSA talks would mean end of engagement with Pakistan, said, ”there were no full stop in diplomacy.” (AGENCIES)
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