The stage for Hamlet is all set. But would the Prince of Denmark step on to it? The props could not get any better. India and Pakistan are barely a few months away from celebrating the 60th year of independence. And the one issue that bedevilled bilateral relations over the last six decades, Jammu and Kashmir, appears tantalisingly close to a settlement. It is now up to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to either seize the moment or risk letting go of an opportunity that comes but rarely in the history of nations.

In the coming weeks, the public focus will be on the formal talks between the two governments. Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri will be here shortly for a session of the Indo-Pak Joint Commission that he chairs with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon heads to Pakistan next month to kick off the next round of the “composite dialogue” on all bilateral issues at the official level. Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will be in New Delhi in the first week of April to attend the 14th summit of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation.

All these meetings will end in customary joint statements. Some colourless agreements on subjects like “nuclear risk reduction” will surely be signed. But the real story of Indo-Pak negotiations is unfolding behind the scenes, in the back channel diplomacy. Manmohan Singh and Pervez Musharraf have apparently taken personal charge of these sensitive negotiations, which by all accounts, have entered a definitive phase.

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