ISLAMABAD: When Pakistan and India in a surprise announcement in February agreed to a cease-fire along the disputed Kashmir border, it was believed that the months ahead would see a thaw in the relations between the two South Asian nuclear-armed neighbours. But as the year comes to an end, there has been no major breakthrough.
Relations between Pakistan and India plummeted to a new low after August 2019, when India scrapped the longstanding special status of occupied Jammu and Kashmir, prompting Islamabad to downgrade its diplomatic ties with New Delhi.
In November, when India hosted a dialogue on Afghanistan, National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf announced that he would not attend the meeting.
“Bilateral relations are likely going to stay the same in 2022 and may further get complicated because of the upcoming domestic political events in both countries such as the 2023 general elections in Pakistan and state polls in India,” said Sarral Sharma, a New Delhi-based security analyst. Sharma, who has also served in the National Security Council Secretariat which advises the prime minister on key issues, told that the status quo would remain.
“Terrorism and Kashmir issue will continue to remain the bone of contention. The status quo should likely remain intact unless an untoward incident, like a big terror attack in India, will lead to further complications in the ties,” he said. Islamabad has been maintaining the normalisation of ties with New Delhi is linked to a review of the August 5 decision and ultimate resolution of the Kashmir dispute.
In August 2019, India scrapped the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and unilaterally bifurcated the erstwhile state in two union territories. Soumya Awasthi, an associate fellow at the New Delhi-based Vivekananda International Foundation, told that a number of decisions taken by Pakistan recently have further complicated the relations, with little chances of improvement expected in 2022.
“Pakistan initially denied trade passage to the civil aid that India wanted to send to Kabul during the Covid-19 peak period and Pakistan not allowing the air passage for Kashmir and Sharjah flight and skipping of NSA’s meet by Pakistan.
“Hence, India-Pakistan relations will continue to be bitter and the hope of having any positive change is a tricky thing to expect,” she said.
“The return of the Taliban has put Pakistan in de facto control of Afghanistan. This has created some unease in Delhi since it has lost a significant space and influence in Afghanistan after the return of the Taliban,” said Sharma.–Agencies
