India and Pakistan have held secret talks to try to break the deadlock in Kashmir

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s and Pakistan’s top intelligence officers held secret talks in Dubai in January in a new effort to ease military tensions over the disputed Hashimia region of Kashmir, Delhi officials told Reuters. close knowledge on this subject.

Ties between nuclear-armed rivals have been on the ice since the suicide bombing of an Indian military convoy in Kashmir in 2019, followed by militants based in Pakistan, which led to the sending of warplanes to Pakistan in India.

Later that year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi withdrew India-led autonomy from Kashmir to tighten control over the territory, sparking outrage in Pakistan and the deterioration of diplomatic ties and the suspension of bilateral trade.

But the two governments have reopened a back channel of diplomacy aimed at a modest roadmap for normalizing ties in the next few months, people said.

Kashmir has long been a hotbed between India and Pakistan, both claiming the entire region, but it only partially governs.

Officials from India’s Research and Analysis Wing, Pakistan’s foreign intelligence agency and inter-service intelligence services traveled to Dubai for a meeting facilitated by the UAE government, two people said.

The Indian Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Also, the Pakistani army, which controls ISI, did not respond.

But Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani defense analyst, said he believed intelligence officials in India and Pakistan had met for months in third countries.

“I think there have been meetings in Thailand, in Dubai, in London between people of the highest level,” she said.

“IT’S FOREST”

Such meetings have taken place in the past, especially in times of crisis, but have never been publicly acknowledged.

“There are many things that can still go wrong, it is full,” said one of the people in Delhi. “That’s why no one speaks it in public, we don’t even have a name for it, it’s not a peace process. You can call it re-employment “, said one of them.

Both countries have reason to seek rapprochement. India has been stranded at a border point with China since last year and does not want the army to extend to the Pakistani front.

Pakistan, a China-China ally, mired in economic hardship and an IMF bailout program, can afford poor tensions on the Kashmir border for an extended period, experts say. It must also stabilize the Afghan border to the west as the United States withdraws.

“It’s better for India and Pakistan to talk than not to talk and even better to be quiet than in an advertising look,” said Myra MacDonald, a former Reuters journalist who has just published a book about India, Pakistan and war on the borders of Kashmir.

“… But I don’t see it going far beyond basic tension management, possibly to influence both countries in a difficult time – Pakistan has to deal with the fall of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, while India has to deal with a much more volatile situation on its border with China. ”

RHETORICAL DEFENSE

Following the January meeting, India and Pakistan announced that they would stop cross-border firing along the Control Line (LoC) that divides Kashmir, leaving dozens of civilians dead and many others mutilated. This ceasefire is maintained, military officials in both countries said.

Both sides have also signaled plans to hold elections in their part of Kashmir this year as part of efforts to bring normalcy to a blood-soaked region for decades.

The two also agreed to give up their rhetoric, Reuters told Reuters.

This would include Pakistan abandoning its strong objections to Modi repealing Kashmir’s autonomy in August 2019, while Delhi, in turn, will refrain from blaming Pakistan for any violence on its part of the Line of Control.

These details have not been previously reported. India has long accused Pakistan of the Kashmir uprising, an accusation denied by Pakistan.

“There is a recognition that there will be attacks inside Kashmir, there have been discussions about how to deal with it and not let this effort derail the next attack,” said one of the people.

However, there is still no grand plan to resolve the 74-year-old dispute in Kashmir. Rather, both sides are trying to reduce tensions to pave the way for a broad engagement, all the people Reuters spoke to said.

“Pakistan is moving from a geo-strategic to a geo-economic field,” Raoof Hasan, a special assistant to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, told Reuters.

“Peace, both inside and in the neighborhood, is a key element in facilitating this.”