With only three days to go, there is still uncertainly whether foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan would take place on Friday as scheduled. What has thrown a cloud over the future of diplomatic engagement between the South Asian rivals is the Jan. 2 attack on an Indian military base in Pathankot followed by one on the Indian Consulate in Afghanistan's Mazar-i-Sharif the next day. Indian officials have privately blamed the Pathankot attack on the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a militant group close to Pakistani intelligence. The developing consensus in India is that Pakistan-based militants have acted to sabotage the Indo-Pak rapprochement made possible by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dramatic visit to Lahore on Dec. 25 to wish his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on his birthday and attend his granddaughter's wedding. Such attacks, Indian officials say, would not be possible without the connivance of Pakistan military's intelligence network. Whatever the truth, the fact remains that the attack took place just when everybody felt there was a refreshing burst of sunshine in the 68-year dismal relationship between India and Pakistan marked by mutual acrimony and distrust. Putting the "ball in Pakistan's court", New Delhi has made the secretary-level talks conditional on the "prompt" response Islamabad takes on "actionable intelligence" provided by India on the Pathankot attack. But there is a welcome departure from the usual belligerent talk in India after a terrorist attack. When Modi spoke to Sharif on Tuesday, he reiterated the demand that Pakistan act on the "actionable and specific information" supplied by India, but avoided blaming the Pakistani state. Hours after the national security advisors of the two countries, Ajit Doval of India and Pakistan's Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Nasser Khan Janjua, spoke to each other. Sharif telephoned Modi, assuring him of Islamabad's support in investigating the leads provided by New Delhi. Pakistani leader placed the call from Colombo, during his state visit there, and the conversation indicated that both prime ministers were in favor of continuing the diplomatic engagement. In a speech on Sunday, Modi referred to the terrorists only as "enemies of humanity." Sharif on Thursday chaired a high-level meeting and discussed the Pathankot terror attack as he directed officials to speed up work on the leads given by India. The meeting called for strong action against anyone found guilty of involvement in the attack. Doval and Janjua have spoken twice since the attack began, including once on Tuesday morning. More to the point, Sharif and Army Chief Raheel Sharif pledged on Friday to cooperate fully with India on investigations into the attack. The participation of the army chief, Rizwan Akhtar, the head of the military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and several top civilian and military officials at the high-level meeting in Islamabad should allay Indian fears that Pakistan's military and civilian government are not on the same page when it comes to peace with India. Agreeing with them, Pakistan's Defense Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif said Saturday that no terrorist group will be allowed to derail the dialogue process with India. Such conciliatory gestures from Pakistan and absence of strident calls for "hot pursuit" of terrorists as used to be the case when Modi and the BJP were in the opposition indicate that both countries want to build on the goodwill created by Modi's impromptu visit to Lahore. This means that India would avoid a situation that arose after the Mumbai terrorist attacks on Nov. 26, 2008 when bilateral talks were suspended. In any case, cancellation of talks doesn't make any sense if India's immediate objective is to bring to an end cross-border terrorism. If New Delhi wants to build some pressure on Islamabad, a sustained, meaningful and comprehensive dialogue process is the way forward. Foreign secretary-level talks should be the first step toward building in both countries a broad political consensus that talking to each other is in their national self
