By Rajeev Sharma
The one-on-one talks between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari at the former’s official residence in New Delhi on Sunday were highly symbolic. Like a slow-moving glacier, the politics of Pakistan seems to be changing. Despite the fact that no big ticket announcement was made by either of the two leaders after their talks, there are a few pointers suggesting that relations between the two nuclear-armed adversaries are changing for the better.
For the first time, Pakistan conveyed its keenness on emulating the China-India bilateral relations model in its ties with India wherein the two sides press on and put contentious issues on the backburner.
As a result, the Singh-Zardari talks culminated in the promise of a visa relaxation agreement facilitating greater people-to-people and business-to-business contacts to be signed during home secretary talks expected to be held later this month. For Pakistan, which until the Gen. Pervez Musharraf era kept on playing the broken record of “Kashmir first, trade later,” this will be a major confidence building measure.
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