No secret talks with Kayani,says PMO

The report had suggested that the recent thaw in the Indo-Pak relationship,articulated most recently in Singh’s initiative to invite his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani to witness the cricket World Cup semi-final at Mohali,might have been made possible because of these secret contacts.

The Times had not identified the “unofficial envoy” who supposedly reached out to Kayani but suggested that both the US and the UK were encouraged by New Delhi’s overtures. This seemed to fall in line because both Washington and London have been sending feelers to New Delhi to engage the Pakistani Army in the context of Singh’s repeated assertion to work towards the normalisation of ties between both countries.

Those backing the idea of engaging the Pakistani Army felt that this was necessary to ensure the durability of the peace process. However,New Delhi had been little circumspect given that the Pakistan Army was constantly pushing the civilian government in Islamabad to take a hard line in its talks with New Delhi. Any exposure to back channel conversation would be a big risk for the top brass in Rawalpindi.

While there had been overtures from the ISI,sources explained that these were related to specific issues not made with the intention to provide long-term directions to the peace process.

Having hit a low after the Mumbai attacks and worsened by the subsequent volley of claims and counter-claims,the Indo-Pak peace process seemed to have been cautiously put back on track in the past year — first after the Thimphu meeting between the two prime ministers and then the recent Mohali interaction which provided an effective backdrop to the resumption of the dialogue process.