The 2003 ceasefire on the Line of Control has clearly now ceased to hold, with daily exchange of fire between Indian and Pakistani soldiers. The DGMO channel has failed to quell exchanges that include artillery and mortar fire. There are no bilateral talks today at any level, and the only contact between the governments in Islamabad and New Delhi is when one country’s foreign ministry summons the other’s High Commissioner to issue a demarche about the growing casualties along the International Boundary and the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir. The two countries have even dispensed with routine niceties: Pakistan is yet to condemn the Uri attack in which 19 soldiers were killed, and India has not put out a statement on the spate of terror attacks in Balochistan. Meanwhile, fears about the LoC firing spiralling out of control have grown. In Pakistan, that worry has increased because of the impending decision on who will be the next army chief, and owing to tensions between Army Headquarters and the Nawaz Sharif government. India, having announced its ‘surgical strikes’ as a new red-line of response post-Uri, is concerned about a terrorist build-up across the LoC, with 18 infiltration attempts reported in the past week.
It is against this backdrop, with confidence-building measures dismantled and dialogue dead, that Sartaj Aziz, Foreign Affairs Advisor to the Pakistan Prime Minister, has indicated that he will visit India for the Heart of Asia donor conference on Afghanistan in early December. A year ago, when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj attended the Heart of Asia meet in Islamabad, she had announced the resumption of bilateral talks, called a “comprehensive dialogue”. This year no such announcement appears to be even remotely on the cards during Mr. Aziz’s trip to Amritsar. It is, however, a window of opportunity to take the current tensions firmly in hand, and assure regional leaders gathered at the conference — who will include Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and ministers from China and Russia — that India and Pakistan can in fact sort out the concerns bilaterally. The Heart of Asia conference will no doubt reinforce India’s message to Pakistan on terrorism on the need to dismantle all groups including those that target its neighbours such as India, Afghanistan and Iran. However, in discussing the protracted violence in Afghanistan, leaders at the conference may also drive home the point that the current levels of tension and violence between India and Pakistan will benefit no one, but only worry the region at large.
