NEW DELHI: The outgoing year will be known as a year of surprises in the history of Indo-Pak relationship, that had a roller coaster journey during the period, but was finally giving reasons for hope.
The mother of all surprises happened in the closing days of the year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a sudden trip to Lahore on way back to New Delhi from Kabul on the Christmas day that also happened to be the birthday of his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.
The two prime ministers took over reins of their respective countries at almost the same times last year, and with definitive mandate that enabled them to take initiatives which the previous governments were not in a position to take.
The move for reengagement was during Mr Modi?s meeting with Mr Sharif here in May 2014 when the latter came here to attend his oath taking ceremony came to a naught as the foreign secretaries talks scheduled for August 25 that year were called off following Pakistan?s insistence to engage with Separatist Kashmiri leaders before the meeting.
This was followed by months of bitterness and acrimony and armed conflict along the Line of Control, clashes in UN over Kashmir. But this was soon followed by a fresh initiative by Mr Modi in February this year when he called up Mr Sharif and other leaders of neighbouring countries. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar visited Islamabad as part of is SAARC Yatra, though no specific move for reengagement was announced during the visit.
The initiative bore fruit as India made a bold beginning with a meeting between Mr Modi and Mr Sharif on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Ufa, Russia. The meeting ended with a shared position that India and Pakistan have a collective responsibility to ensure peace and promote development. The two sides unveiled a five-point agenda to address concerns on terrorism and to promote people-to-people contact.
It was decided that the National Security Advisers of the two countries would meet to first discuss terror. However, the quest for normalization of ties again faced a roadblock when Pakistan NSA insisted on meeting Kashmir Separatists before his talks with Indian NSA Ajit Doval, and Islamabad insisting that Kashmir be included as an issue in the talks while India pointed out that as per the Ufa understanding the NSA were to talk only on terror.
Pakistan finally called off the talks a day ahead of the scheduled meeting, and ties between the two countries receded into another period of chill. The people, media and foreign affairs watchers were in for another surprise, when it was announced one evening earlier this month that the NSAs of the two countries, helped by their respective Foreign Secretaries, met in Bangkok as part of efforts for constructive re-engagement between the two countries.
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