A world of opportunity for India and Pakistan

A framework should be established to sustain the momentum generated by Swaraj’s Islamabad visit

The decision to resume ministerial dialogue between India and Pakistan — as agreed by their foreign ministers on Wednesday — is a rare positive spark in a relationship that has increasingly appeared to be frozen in time. More significantly, the nuclear neighbours also condemned terrorism, noting the success of the secret talks between the national security advisers of the two countries last week. Against the backdrop of sporadic military firefights at the border through the year, the freshly defrosted ties are what the Indian Foreign Minister, Sushma Swaraj, termed as “signs of maturity”. But as it has happened so often in the past, a jumpstart in revitalising bilateral relations has been jeopardised by an attack or a comment that derailed the process. It’s time such self-defeating moves come to a halt and a framework is established to sustain the momentum generated by the positive atmosphere in Islamabad.

There are obvious hurdles to overcome. For instance, while Pakistan insists on Kashmir to be included on any agenda for dialogue, New Delhi accuses Islamabad of not doing enough to prevent cross-border terrorism. But a consistently constructive and fruitful engagement between India and Pakistan opens up a world of enormous possibilities not only for the two nations, but also for the international community. A stark reminder of that came on the same day Swaraj met her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz, in the form of a deadly siege at Kandahar airport in Afghanistan by the Taliban. India and Pakistan both acknowledge that a stable Afghanistan is a prerequisite for permanently defeating extremism in their neighbourhood. To paraphrase Swaraj, the world has been eagerly waiting for a change in the Indian sub-continent — and now is the opportunity to turn it into something more lively than permafrost.