Flip Flop: From No Talks to the Possibility of a Modi-Sharif Meet in New York?

NEW DELHI: In a quiet flip flop Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s envoys are trying to open a window with Pakistan yet again. The media has reported two meetings between India and Pakistan over the last one week, in what is being perceived as a tentative effort to grab world headlines by a meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan.

There is no word from either side whether this has been scripted in their respective visits to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly but clearly the conversations between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Pakistan envoy to India Abdul Basit could not have been about the weather. These meetings have been held a month after India cancelled the foreign secretary level talks because Basit met the Hurriyat leaders just before the talks were due.

Doval according to the Indian Express told the Pakistan envoy that now India was committed to normalisation of results with Pakistan. This meeting was followed by a second round between the High Commissioner and Indian foreign secretary Sujatha Singh. After the cancellation of the foreign secretary level talks there has been a hardening of posture of both sides with Pakistan earning brownie points amongst sections in Jammu and Kashmir for refusing to cancel the talks with the Hurriyat leaders and as one of them said, “for choosing us over the government.”

However, now if the conjecture is true then New Delhi has decided to build relations again for a possible meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. PM Modi is scheduled to address the UNGA on September 27, and PM Sharif a day earlier so the two might have that evening available for a meeting if they are so inclined. However, so far there is no sign of a breakthrough with both sides keeping very quiet on the issue. Significantly, the ‘sources’ quoted in the Indian Express have claimed that in these meetings the initial bone of contention, the Hurriyat leaders, were not mentioned. Significant, as they were the ostensible reason for the major setback to the bilateral peace process.

A Modi-Sharif meeting, however, remains fraught with pitfalls at this stage with Prime Minister Sharif on a weak wicket in Pakistan, having lost most of his authority in recent weeks to the Army there. Here the Jammu and Kashmir elections were a factor behind PM Modi’s earlier disinterest to move forward on this issue, but the floods and the possibility of a postponement of the polls could be linked to the new feelers being sent out and tested by both sides.

In the midst of this the statement by young Pakistan peoples party leader Bilawal Bhutto that he will not rest until he has taken back entire Kashmir cannot really be seen as conducive to a fruitful meeting between the two PM’s as Sharif cannot criticise the PPP sentiment without getting sufficient brickbats from the military and even his own political party at this stage. Of course the young Bhutto, under the advice of his father former President Asif Ali Zardari, is throwing the PPP hat into the ring in the midst of growing political uncertainty in Pakistan.

So far these meetings in new Delhi seem to be aimed at ensuring that there is room for a meeting if the circumstances allow it in New York.At best another handshake to get the eyeballs that political leaders can never get enough of anyway.