Earlier last month, Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto said that there were no plans for any meeting between Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers on the sidelines of the SCO summit. He, however, made it clear that Pakistan has no option but to get used to living with India as no one can change their neighbours, mouthing a line made famous earlier by the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Bilawal, however, didn’t make clear what living with India for Pakistan meant. For Vajpayee, this became a rationale for instituting one of the most durable dialogue processes with the then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf that nearly pulled off a Kashmir solution.
However, there is a lot that has happened since then. The dynamics that had made the engagement possible then no longer obtain. After revocation of Article 370 in August 2019, the complexion of the Kashmir issue has changed beyond recognition. Several new factors are at play in the regional geo-politics and in the relations between the two countries that have made it increasingly difficult to go back to the formula. New Delhi has also taken Kashmir off the table in future discussions with Pakistan, considering the issue settled once and for all. The only issues that New Delhi wants to discuss now are terrorism and the return of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. The refrain in India is that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Islamabad in an environment free of terror, hostility, and violence.
But Pakistan wants to only discuss Kashmir and also seeks a reversal of the withdrawal of Article 370 which is not going to happen. The positions of the two countries have thus become too irreconcilable to make it easy for them to re-engage. But it is still possible that PM Modi and Sharif meet and break ice. In the interest of regional peace, the two neighbours need to transcend their differences and talk to each other. This alone will change the situation in the region for the better.
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