Building on his predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee’s peace initiatives towards Pakistan and China, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came up with new approach to resolving long-standing disputes with the two neighbours.

The first step was to make clear what was not possible. During the visit of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to New Delhi in April 2005, Manmohan Singh made it clear that he had no political mandate to cede territory in J&K to Pakistan.

Last November, when Chinese President Hu Jintao came to India, he was told in equally clear terms that Beijing should not expect any territorial concessions in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh. Although China claims the entire Arunachal Pradesh, it suggested that the dispute over the 3600 km long boundary could be ended if India were to make territorial concessions on the Tawang tract.

With Musharraf responding positively by rejecting independence for Kashmir and agreeing to renounce claims to the Indian Kashmir, the current talks between India and Pakistan have acquired unprecedented momentum.

Singh and Musharraf also agreed that border lines should not matter in J&K and that improving the lives of the people in both parts of Kashmir through trans-border cooperation was the key. Singh took a step further by proposing a “consultative mechanism” between the divided territories of J&K in his speech at Amritsar last

March. Since then the proposal has been at the heart of the back channel consultations between New Delhi and Islamabad.

To be sure, there are a number of issues to be resolved on the composition and mandate of the Intra-Kashmiri consultative mechanism. This weekend, External Affairs Minister Mukherjee will have a chance to find out from Musharraf on where exactly Pakistan stands on the issue.

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