Buzz louder on India-Pakistan thaw after Ajit Doval, Sartaj Aziz meet
No details of what was discussed were available, but speculation was rife that Ajit Doval and Sartaj Aziz discussed the prevailing tensions between India and Pakistan
Amritsar: National Security Adviser Ajit Doval held a conversation on Saturday with Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, amid tensions between the two countries over rising terrorist attacks in India and an escalation of cross-border firing.
A person familiar with the developments on the Pakistani side said the two met late on Saturday. No details of what was discussed were available, but speculation was rife that the two discussed the prevailing tensions between India and Pakistan.
Foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said “categorically" that “there was no pull-aside or bilateral meeting between the two".
Aziz is in India to take part in the Heart of Asia conference aimed at stabilizing Afghanistan, which is faced with a resurgent Taliban insurgency.
The Indian foreign ministry denied there was a meeting. “They walked together for 100 feet," said a second person familiar with the developments from the Indian side who did not wish to be named.
In a photograph circulated by the Pakistan foreign office, Aziz and Doval appear to be engaged in a conversation, with the national security adviser seen gesturing towards Aziz.
The exchange comes amid a surge in tensions between India and Pakistan since July when Pakistan described a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist killed by Indian troops in Kashmir as a “leader" and a “martyr".
In January, alleged Pakistan-based terrorists attacked the Indian Air Force station at Pathankot in Punjab. All four terrorists and three Indian security personnel were killed.
A terrorist attack on an Indian army garrison in September that killed 19 soldiers frayed ties further, with India retaliating with “surgical strikes" against terrorist launchpads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. There have been multiple violations of the 2003 ceasefire since then, and tensions further rose after an attack on Tuesday by terrorists on an army garrison in Nagrota town in Jammu and Kashmir.
At a press briefing in New Delhi on Thursday, Swarup reiterated that terrorism and talks cannot go hand-in-hand. Terrorism cannot be the normal in bilateral relations, he said.
The circumstances around Aziz’s visit represent a far cry from the state of bilateral relations when foreign minister Sushma Swaraj visited Pakistan on 9 December last year for the Heart of Asia conference. Aziz and Swaraj had then announced the launch of the “comprehensive bilateral dialogue"—aimed at restarting bilateral peace talks on disputes between the two countries, including the one over Kashmir that has been stalled since early 2013.
But all efforts at a rapprochement began unravelling with the Pathankot attack.
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