At a time when all official meetings between India and Pakistan are on hold, senior MEA and R&AW officials met their counterparts in the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and ISI at a conference in Oman, organised by the U.S. Military National Defence University and British think-tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Hindu has learnt.
The Indian delegation included the MEA’s pointperson for Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran, Joint Secretary (PAI) Gopal Baglay, Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Manpreet Vohra and an Additional Secretary of the external intelligence Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW). From Pakistan, the MOFA’s Director General for South Asia Faisal Chaudhary, a high ranking military officer from the Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen Zubair Hyat’s team and a senior Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) official. The delegates attended several sessions including one on “normalising India-Pakistan relations”.
While MEA officials insisted no “bilateral” meeting took place between the senior level delegations, this is the first multilateral event that India and Pakistan have participated at since India cancelled its attendance at the Islamabad SAARC summit over the Uri attack. The meeting is significant as it came as tensions between India and Pakistan are at a high point over heavy cross-LoC and cross-border firing in the wake of India’s announcement that it had conducted surgical strikes across the LoC.
After India pulled out of the SAARC summit, Pakistan has cancelled its attendance at an Asian Disaster Risk Reduction conference to be held in Delhi November 2-5. Pakistan’s foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz confirmed last week that Pakistan would send a delegation to the “Heart of Asia” donor conference on Afghanistan in early December to be hosted by India in Amritsar, but hasn’t confirmed what level the Summit would be attended at.
The Muscat conference, that took place on October 21-23 was the 10th round of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) and Near East South Asia (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies at the US National Defense University’s dialogue on “South Asian Security”.
The conference, which is held annually in Oman, brings together officials from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to discuss regional security.
When contacted by The Hindu , the conference organisers refused to comment, saying that its proceedings are “strictly off the record”, but a note on their website says the meeting allows “government and military officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to discuss political and regional security issues.”
Invitees to the conference said some of the sessions saw “tense scenes”, especially when Pakistani delegates raised the Kashmir issue “even when the discussions didn’t warrant it.” However, officials would not comment on the broad speculation that the conference had provided an opportunity for India and Pakistani officials to meet when all other avenues are closed.
In the past, India has sent intelligence officials to the conference, and has consistently sent representatives, but this year’s participation is important in the context of the current situation. In 2014, the government sent the then BJP spokesperson M.J. Akbar to speak at the sessions. South Block sources said the main reason to send a delegation to the conference this year was the “growing intensity of ties between India and Afghanistan”, and that officials from at least 63 countries were present at Al Bustan Palace Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Muscat, where the event was held.
