India and Pakistan Work Towards Peace

The India and Pakistan Border (Wikimedia Commons).

India and Pakistan held their first meeting in three years on March 23 through a commission on water rights to discuss the nature of the Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnai dam projects in the Indus River in Kashmir. More importantly, India also signaled its willingness to resume trade between the two countries. 

In the lower house of the Indian Parliament, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Hardeep Singh Puri said, “India desires normal relations, including on trade with all countries, including Pakistan. Pakistan unilaterally suspended bilateral trade with India in August 2019. It is for Pakistan to review its unilateral measures on trade.”

According to several reports, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) played a critical role in brokering the cease-fire and the emerging peace talks between the two countries. In an attempt to discern the nature of the UAE’s involvement in the ceasefire, Al Jazeera interviewed top officials who indicated that the ceasefire agreement was a high point in secret talks between the countries that began months ago. An unnamed official suggested that the ceasefire was only a small step in a larger plan towards securing peace between the two countries. Following the ceasefire, the two countries allegedly aimed to re-establish their envoys that were revoked after India’s removal of Kashmir’s special status. 

India and Pakistan took the world by surprise in February after committing to respect a 2003 cease-fire agreement, settling their recent border tensions. The relationship between the two countries had deteriorated after August 2019, when the Indian government revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and its disputed territories, putting the regions into a stringent lockdown. Since then, there have been more than 7,000 incidents of fire across the Line of Control, which have been condemned by the two states’ Prime Ministers.

Since the collapse of the British Raj in 1947, India and Pakistan have worked regularly towards peace, only to have their measures rapidly fail as the two sides often exploited the issue during election times. However, both countries have taken noteworthy steps after the ceasefire, raising hopes for a potentially peaceful relationship.