Back on talking terms

Yes, the United States is arbitrating between Pakistan and India. Yes, it's nothing but third-party mediation – something that India has been rejecting all along, on the flimsy pretext of terrorism patronage blamed on Pakistan as well as a cherry-picked part of the 1972 Simla Agreement that says that "the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations…" Hitherto successful in bluntly disregarding peace overtures from Pakistan as well as offers of mediation from the world powers on the longstanding Kashmir dispute, New Delhi has now had to throw in the towel.

It's for the whole world to see that the May 10 ceasefire between Pakistan and India – which halted the four days of intense fighting in one of the largest military escalations between the two adversaries since the Kargil War of 1999 – has come on the intervention from none other than the President of the United States of America. And this simply means Delhi's acceptance of third-party mediation on bilateral issues, as well as its agreement to begin talks on a range of issues, of course including Kashmir – something that it has managed to evade thus far in line with its no-so-covert hegemonic pursuits.

And now Pakistan and India are back on talking terms – after almost 18 years. The first formal contact between the two countries since the Mumbai attack of November 2008 came yesterday in the form of a telephonic conversation involving the chiefs of their military operations. The teletalk between the two DGMOs conforms to the ceasefire agreement brokered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on behalf of the American president. The ice-breaking contact between the military officers from the two sides is to graduate into "formal talks" on a "neutral venue", as per what Rubio had announced while breaking the ceasefire news to the world.

The best thing, in the context of peace in the region and beyond, that could have come out of the four-day military encounter between Pakistan and India is that the status quo on Kashmir that Delhi had maintained at least since the August 2019 revocation of its autonomous status has been shattered.