Pakistan has closed the door on talks
increasingly jingoistic milieu.
The ‘appropriate’ response our army has promised to avenge Pakistan’s “un-soldierly act” might come sooner than later. Given that the talks between Directors General of Military Operation (DGMO) weren’t to our satisfaction, the retributive strike will be par for the course.
When bilateralism fails or is abandoned retaliation is the answer, not third party arbitration or intervention that Islamabad or the likes of Erdogan are prone to propose. The leader from Turkey is unaware perhaps that India doesn’t even recognise the United Nations Military Observers’ Group on India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) that could have played the referee.
The UMOGIP is allowed a “holiday posting” in India because the UNSC resolutions (39 and 47 of 1948) under which it was constituted haven’t since been amended
From the Indian standpoint, the military observers’ mandate became fructuous post 1971 when the UN brokered ceasefire line became the bilaterally negotiated Line of Control (LOC). That position is strengthened by the letter and spirit of the 1972 Shimla Accord the sum of which is that all pending India-pakistan disputes will be addressed bilaterally.
Be that as it may, Kashmir looks destined for a long summer of discontent—and cross border attrition. Rawalpindi’s aggressive posturing could be on the nudging of Beijing that has heightened its stakes in POK with the ambitious China-pakistan Economic Corridor. It’s unhappy as much with the paradigm change in India’s Balochistan policy and the Modi dispensation’s refusal to keep the Dalai Lama from visiting Arunachal