Pakistan considering appointing NSA to resume backchannel diplomacy with India

Pakistan is considering appointing a National Security Advisor to revive backchannel diplomacy with India, according to official sources. The likely appointment of the NSA is meant for reviving the backchannel diplomacy with India to sort out some of the pressing issues between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, the official sources privy to the development was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune. In the past, the two countries often used backchannel through the NSAs to prepare ground for any talks.

A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the government was likely to appoint a retired military official as the National Security Advisor (NSA).

Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had said “If the next Indian government is led by the opposition Congress party, it might be too scared to seek a settlement with Pakistan over Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK), fearing a backlash from the right.”

“Perhaps if the BJP a right-wing party wins, some kind of settlement on Kashmir could be reached,” he had said.

The relationship between the two neighbouring nations currently is at all-time low after Pulwama attack. On February 14, at least 42 CRPF personnel were killed in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district when a Jaish suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 30 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district that also left many critically wounded.

More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora in south Kashmir.

In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out a counter-terror operation, hitting what it said was a JeM training camp in Balakot, deep inside Pakistan on February 26.