Secret India-Pakistan Ceasefire Talks Brokered by the UAE

A day after military chiefs from India and Pakistan made an unprecedented joint-agreement to respect their original ceasefire agreement from 2003, reportedly a top diplomat from the United Arab Emirates subsequently visited New Delhi for a brief one-day visit.

According to an official statement from the United Arab Emirates' Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 26th of February, it was revealed that Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed spoke with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on "all regional and international issues of common interest and exchanged views on them.”

As reported by Bloomberg, the India-Pakistan ceasefire was the culmination of secret talks behind closed doors brokered by the Gulf state over the course of months.

According to officials close to the matter, the cease-fire is the beginning of a larger roadmap to forge a lasting peace between the embattled neighbors, both of which have nuclear weapons and have regularly turbulent relations over a decades-old territorial dispute.

Officials added that both sides aim to reinstate envoys in New Delhi and Islamabad, who were unceremoniously withdrawn after Pakistan protested India's move to abrogate Article-370 and to revoke decades of constitutional autonomy in Occupied Kashmir.

Over the past few years, India and Pakistan have routinely attempted to make peace gestures, which quickly fall apart, particularly as the Kashmir Issue is used to stir up electoral support.

However, as the Biden Administration is pursuing a wider peace initiative in Afghanistan, both countries have been brought to the negotiating table.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry didn’t comment on the talks, while the foreign ministries of India and the UAE had no immediate comment on the matter.

Last week, at the Islamabad Security Dialogue, Pakistan's Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa asked India “to bury the past and move forward” while stating that the military was ready to enter talks to resolve “all our outstanding issues" - which came a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan called for a resolution on the Kashmir Issue, 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 marginally improving.