Pakistan has once again done what India has been objecting to-talking to Kashmiri separatists. This has been going on whenever there is some move to hold talks at various levels. The Narendra Modi government in the past has twice called off significant engagements with Pakistan because Islamabad chose to discuss the situation in J and K just ahead of the meetings. Then Foreign Secretary Sujata Singh couldn’t travel to Pakistan in August 2014 and, last year, the two countries aborted a meeting between the NSAs after Aziz, who was then NSA, insisted on meeting Hurriyat Conference leaders ahead of dialogue with Ajit Doval. India has repeatedly sought to defend its decision by declaring that there can’t be any third party to the J and K dispute. Pakistan though has refused to budge from its position saying that it looks at the Hurriyat leaders as genuine representatives of Kashmiri people. In fact, if anything, Pakistan in the recent past has sought to give more prominence to the cause of the separatists, while calling for an early meeting between the Foreign Secretaries which it wants to use to address the Kashmir issue. Earlier, Pakistan took shelter under India to reject America’s call to reduce or cap its nuclear weapons arsenal, believed to be the fastest growing in the world. Pakistan took the stand to justify its refusal the “strategic and conventional imbalance with India” as the topmost security threat to it. India has called Pakistan to maintain sanctity of the Line of Control (LoC). Pakistan has always taken the stand that terrorism is something of their own concern. It is overflow of terrorism from Afghanistan that becomes the top security concern for it. The subcontinent has been witnessing a nuclear armament race and Pakistan has the fastest growing stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world and America has called it to review its nuclear policy. It has ruled out America’s desire to reduce or cap its fast expanding nuclear weapons arsenal and put the onus for it on India. Blame games apart both the countries should work towards normalising the relations at the earliest.
