Pakistan and India’s 2015 journey: From nightmare to ‘breakthrough’

As if by magic, the ‘Heart of Asia’ conference in Islamabad earlier this month turned out to be a deux machina for Pakistan and India. Suddenly, the tailspin stopped and a crash, nose first, averted.

On November 9, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz and India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj issued a joint statement to pave the way for resumption of bilateral talks, and added a new shibboleth to the voluminous Indo-Pakistan literature on diplomacy – ‘comprehensive bilateral dialogue’, ditching the failed ‘composite dialogue’.