Jaishankar’s visit an ‘ice breaker’: Officials

Islamabad: The first visit to Pakistan by a top Indian diplomat in nearly 10 years was an “ice breaker”, the information minister said Wednesday, as regional heads of governments gathered for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

“Neither us nor them requested for a bilateral meeting… but I believe his arrival here is an ice breaker,” the information minister Attaullah Tarar said on the sidelines of the summit in the capital Islamabad.
“Yesterday, when all the leaders were being welcomed and there were handshakes, I think positive images were sent out globally.”

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif greeted each other with a handshake and sombre expressions at the start of an official dinner for the visiting leaders of the SCO bloc on Tuesday.

Relations between neighbours India and Pakistan have been particularly sour since 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the limited autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Modi’s 2019 move led Pakistan to suspend bilateral trade and downgrade diplomatic ties with New Delhi.
Relationship between Pakistan and India has remained at a standstill and tense for many years. It took the two sides seven years to have first public handshake, when Prime Minister Shehbaz received Jaishankar for the dinner-reception a day before the SCO meeting.

But the second handshake, which looked more comfortable, took place only few hours later when Shehbaz greeted Jaishankar upon arrival at the Jinnah Convention Centre for the summit meeting.

Unlike the dinner meeting, Jaishankar looked at far more ease so was Prime Minister Shehbaz when they shook hands for the second time in less than 24 hours.

Another sign that both sides made deliberate attempt not to create any unpleasant situations for each other was that Jaishankar left Islamabad without any media interaction not even with his own journalists, who were in Islamabad to cover the SCO.

The Pakistani side also made sure that the Indian delegation had a comfortable stay in Islamabad. The sources agreed that after many years there appeared to be some opening but they are not too optimistic about any major breakthrough given the stakes and political capital the two countries may lose if they show any flexibility in their respective positions.