india pakistan diplomacy

 With careful diplomatic scripting,  and  began talking again this week. Officials from the two countries convened in New Delhi to discuss security issues and pave the way for future meetings between more powerful officials. The talks were billed as baby steps, a modest restarting of an important diplomatic dialogue that had stalled.
Then, unexpectedly, a cricket match intervened, and almost overnight, the scope and possibilities of the dialogue have changed.
The national teams of India and Pakistan have both advanced to the semifinal round of the cricket World Cup tournament. When it became clear that the teams would meet Wednesday afternoon in the Indian city of Mohali, the prime minister of India,  issued a surprise invitation to his Pakistani counterpart, to join him in the grandstand.
Mr. Gilani has accepted. The prospect of the two leaders’ sitting together for hours in a relatively informal setting has many here asking what they will talk about, and whether a breakthrough could be possible between the two fractious, nuclear-armed neighbors.
For the Indian subcontinent, where few things stir public passions more than cricket and politics, the twinning of such a high-stakes match with such high-stakes diplomacy has created an irresistible spectacle. An enormous audience is expected to watch the match on TV, and India has ordered a sweeping security clampdown in Mohali, including closing the city’s airspace.
Mr. Singh’s invitation — it was also extended to the Pakistani pres id, who declined — is another example of how Mr. Singh has repeatedly tried to advance diplomacy with Pakistan, often over the resistance of the Indian political opposition and even some members of his own Indian National Congress Party. In New Delhi, Mr. Singh’s overture has drawn a mixed reaction: some analysts praise his determination to push forward while others call the invitation a political stunt that risks undermining the lower-level talks that began this week.
“It has caught everybody by surprise,” said Brahma Chancellery, a strategic affairs analyst in New Delhi. “In diplomacy, you have to do the preparatory work first if you want to have a result. This sounds like an impulsive move.”
Harish K hare, a spokesman for Mr. Singh, described the invitation as a “spur of the moment” decision. There will be no specific agenda or any structured dialogue, he said; rather, it will be an opportunity to build trust, enjoy the match and have “an exchange of ideas.”
“The prime minister just said, ‘Come along,’ ” Mr. Kare said. “Of course, there will be some talk. But it is not a summit meeting. And it will not interfere with the ongoing dialogue.”
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the two countries were founded in 1947, and their unsettled relationship lies beneath many of South Asia’s most festering problems, including their dispute over Kashmir, lasting decades. Diplomatic pr-ogre when militants based in Pakistan mounted in Mumbai that killed at least 163 people. The United States has been prodding both countries toward negotiations in the hope that if tensions are defused, the Pakistani military would withdraw troops from the Indian border and focus more attention on fighting terrorist groups inside Pakistan.
The meetings that began Monday in New Delhi were supposed to be the initial step in this latest resumption of the dialogue. Qamar Zaman, the Pakistani interior secretary, and G. K. Pillai, the Indian home secretary, met on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the Mumbai attacks and other security issues. India has demanded that Pakistan bring to justice the  of the Mumbai attacks, and has accused Pakistani officials of deliberately dragging their feet in the investigation. But those meetings were upstaged by the cricket overture.
Analysts noted that cricket diplomacy has been tried in the past, with mixed results. President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan attended an India-Pakistan match in 1987, but relations between the countries soon deteriorated. In 2005, Mr. Singh invited President to an India-Pakistan match in New Delhi, ushering in a period of secret back-channel talks that almost culminated in a deal on Kashmir.
Now, though, many analysts say the political situation is far different. Both Mr. Gilani and Mr. Singh are politically wounded at home; Indian analysts argue that Mr. Gilani is actually far less politically powerful than the country’s military chief, Gen. and is not in a position to make any sort of significant deal. Meanwhile, Mr. Singh has been battered at home by  leveled against his government. His foes argue that the cricket overture is mostly intended to distract public attention from the domestic controversies.
Yet the invitation does seem to have enhanced a feeling of good will on both sides. This week, Pakistan announced the early release of a longtime Indian prisoner, if admittedly by only a few months. And Tuesday, Pakistan agreed to a visit by an Indian judicial commission investigating the Mumbai attacks.
“You will see relations become more friendly and cordial, even outside the cricket grounds,” predicted A bid


 
Saeed, the press counselor for the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. He said a delegation of about 50 ministers and officials was traveling with Mr. Gianni.
C. Raja Mohan, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, applauded Mr. Singh’s gambit, noting that for all the highly structured meetings by lower-level officials, progress is usually made when the top leaders are directly engaged. Mr. Monah said that if the cricket diplomacy resulted in warmer relations, Mr. Singh should visit Pakistan as his next move.
“Right or wrong, India’s Pakistan policy has always been driven by the gut instincts of the prime ministers rather than the carefully crafted approaches by the diplomatists,” Mr. Monah wrote on Tuesday in The Indian Express, a leading English-language newspaper. “If the mood at Mohair turns out to be good, Dr. Singh and Gilani might help give the dialogue at the bureaucratic level a much needed boost.