The optics of India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar’s visit to Islamabad may have been the nicest thing to happen against a backdrop of strained ties between India and Pakistan as the warmth in personal meetings outside the formal conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), especially those that Mr Jaishankar had with his counterpart Ishaq Dar and their interior minister Mohsin Naqvi, was noticeable. To interpret the cordiality of the first Indian foreign minister’s visit to Pakistan in nine years as a breakthrough leading to a possible thaw in national ties is to read too much into the civility and the etiquette of diplomacy in the complex dynamics of the region’s geopolitics.
Of course, it would be a very good development if there it is to be a shift away from India’s regular abrasiveness in its dealings with Pakistan and China. In any case, it is far above the foreign minister’s pay grade to order a resetting of ties when any such change of direction can come only from the very top and we know the chances of that happening any time soon are remote. Mr Jaishankar may have kept to the SCO charter of not raking up bilateral issues, which he, however, did attempt in veiled references to “activities across borders characterised by terrorism, extremism and separatism”, meaning Pakistan and China.
There have been rugged signals of late from India with the home minister and others ruling out any top-level bilateral talks with Pakistan while the defe.
