With the National Security Advisers of India and Pakistan breaking the bilateral impasse in Bangkok on Sunday, expectations have risen in the establishment about a significant step forward on the security front by both the sides.
The NSA meeting, a closely guarded secretive four-and-a-half-hour meeting in Bangkok, followed the unscheduled meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Paris on November 30.
A meeting of NSAs in New Delhi, and meeting of the Directors General of Military Operations, as well as that of Directors General of the BSF and Pakistan Rangers were the three key elements contained in the Ufa joint statement issued after a meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Sharif. While the scheduled NSA talks fell apart in the final moments before it was to be held in New Delhi, the paramilitary chiefs’ meeting went off as scheduled in September 2015. According to Army sources, there is no official indication that the government is looking to organise a DGMO-level meeting soon. In fact, India’s DGMO post has been lying vacant since Lt. Gen. P.R. Kumar retired on September 30.
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Even as India’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) post has been lying vacant for the past several weeks, during the National Security Advisers’ meeting in Bangkok the Indian side raised the issue of the Ufa proposal for DGMO-level talks.
A senior Army source said that it wouldn’t take much time for the Army headquarters to organise itself for DGMO-level consultations.
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“Winter may be a good time to talk,” he said, hinting at the freezing of the upper reaches of the Line of Control, a halt to infiltration for months, and a general dip in violence in Kashmir.