The United Arab Emirates has been making efforts to bring Pakistan and India closer by brokering “secret talks” between the two neighbours.
According to Bloomberg, the India-Pakistan cease-fire “marked a milestone in secret talks brokered by the UAE that began months earlier”.
“The cease-fire, one said, is only the beginning of a larger roadmap to forge a lasting peace between the neighbors, both of which have nuclear weapons and spar regularly,” the report citing anonymous sources added.
The ceasefire announcement will be followed by both sides reinstating envoys in New Delhi and Islamabad, who were pulled in 2019 after Pakistan protested India’s move to revoke seven decades of autonomy for the disputed Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, the report added.
“Then comes the hard part: Talks on resuming trade and a lasting resolution on Kashmir, the subject of three wars since India and Pakistan became independent from Britain in 1947,” it added.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry didn’t comment on the talks or the role of the UAE, while the foreign ministries of India and the UAE had no immediate comment.
Last week Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa asked India “to bury the past and move forward” while saying the military was ready to enter talks to resolve “all our outstanding issues.” The comments came a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan after called for a resolution on Kashmir, which he described as “the one issue that holds us back.”
On Saturday, Modi sent a tweet wishing Khan well after he was diagnosed with Covid-19 — another sign that relations between the countries are getting warmer.
The article originally appeared in Bloomberg.
