Talks delayed, but on track; India hails Pakistan action on Jaish-e-Mohammed

NEW DELHI: Amid growing signs of Islamabad moving against Maulana Masood Azhar and other leaders of Jaish-e-Mohammed who plotted the terror attack on Pathankot, India-Pakistan talks appear to be on track though they have been pushed back by a few days.
India announced on Thursday that both countries had decided to reschedule the foreign secretary talks “in the very near future”, heaping praise on Pakistan for its actions against the JeM as an “important and positive first step”.Foreign secretary S Jaishankar spoke to his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhury on Thursday morning to look for a second date for the talks.
With growing evidence that Pakistan had placed Azhar and other key Jaish figures under detention, India also committed to provide all help to Pakistani investigators who want to come to Pathankot.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said, “We look forward to the visit of the Pakistan SIT and our investigative agencies will extend all necessary cooperation to bring the perpetrators of this attack to justice.”

If it happens, it will be the first time India and Pakistan will jointly investigate a terror attack from Pakistan into India. The important part of all this is the terror investigation will continue alongside the official dialogue. The action against Jaish and India’s public praise for Pakistan has freed up a lot of political capital on both sides.
For the second day running, Pakistani media was thick with reports about Azhar’s detention, with persistent speculation that the detention was not made public to ward off the possibility of protests by legions of Jaish supporters in Punjab province and to get around the legal requirement to intimate the court about the action, a stipulation which would also bring lawyers in play.
Referring to the statement issued by Pakistan on Wednesday where it vowed not to let its soil be used for terrorism “anywhere” and to work on the information provided by India about the terror attack on Pathankot air base, India said considerable progress had been made in the investigations by the neighbouring country.
The foreign ministry said the decision to reschedule the talks had been arrived with “aapsi sahmati” (mutual consent). While the ministry denied reports that the NSAs had met in a third country, it said the two officials were and would continue to remain in touch. Interestingly, Pakistan’s foreign office announced the rescheduling of the foreign secretary talks in the morning, adding it had been done in agreement with India.
They also stated that they had “no information” that Azhar had been arrested or detained. On Wednesday, media reports about Azhar’s “arrest” appeared to link the fate of the talks to a person. This meant India would have been under pressure to call off the talks if Pakistan set Azhar free from whatever “detention” he was in.
Going by the history on Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, no one in India expects any real action against big ticket terror leaders inside Pakistan. Given its keenness to test Nawaz Sharif’s claim that their establishment, army and ISI included, were backing the peace initiative, it did not want to publicly impose conditions that would cramp the Pakistani PM’s position.
However, the government would not like to go out on a limb either, and there are indications that the decision to reschedule talks shortly and the praise for Pakistan were prompted by the assurance conveyed by Islamabad that Azhar remained in detention. The public appreciation is intended to be an encouragement.
India will not wait for too long before scheduling the foreign secretary dialogue. New Delhi wants to support actions that Sharif is taking, and giving it too long a gap would make him vulnerable to criticism inside Pakistan, where he is also charting an unprecedented course. Moreover, after Pathankot, the government believes there may be more such attacks intended to derail the peace process. It doesn’t want those to dominate the narrative.
The biggest takeaway from the past few days has been the NSA channel that has been active off-stage. Although the MEA spokesperson denied the NSAs had met (there was some talk they had met in Dubai), he confirmed that they had been in touch constantly. In fact, Ajit Doval and Naseer Janjua were instrumental in charting a roadmap for the two sides to work together on terror investigation while keeping the official track going.