Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is a man who looks sharp in a suit and can speak like a professional diplomat. At a dinner he hosted in Islamabad for Indian journalists last week, he was pressed about how the Kartarpur initiative came about. Was it a googly by Prime Minister Imran Khan , knowing India wouldn’t be able to come in the way of a long-standing demand of the Sikhs? Absolutely not, he said.When the question was repeated in different ways by multiple journalists, he made a telling comment. Pakistan is desirous of peace with India and has been looking for an initiative to further peace. “Since the government wasn’t responding, we thought we would reach out to the people so that there would be pressure on the government to respond,” he said in Urdu.A day later, addressing a gathering to celebrate the 100 days of the Imran Khan government, he said Kartarpur was indeed a googly towards India by Khan. In cricket, a googly is a deceptive delivery by a spin bowler.While Imran Khan made an all-out appeal for peace last week, there were similar contradictions and discordant notes that served to add to the natural scepticism India’s fraught history with Pakistan warrants.Here’s what Khan said last week. Pakistan wants peace with India. The army is on board. There has been a change of mindset in Pakistan. India and Pakistan have in the past come close to resolving Kashmir. So it’s not impossible. By opening the Kartarpur pilgrimage corridor, Pakistan has made a gesture. It expects a response after the general elections in 2019. Bottomline: let’s resume talks.The domestic situation is bleak for Khan. The economy is facing an acute debt crisis. It’s in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout but the outcome is uncertain. Inflation is at a four-year high. Relations with Trump’s US is fraught, and Saudi Arabia and China are the only countries that appear willing to extend financial assistance.Pakistan’s desire for normalcy on its eastern border is therefore unsurprising. However, the Kartarpur gesture, a wonderful initiative for the Sikh community, has limited potential to improve ties unless the change in mindset in Pakistan that Khan claims to have taken place, begins to reflect in his country’s response to India’s substantive concerns.During interactions in Islamabad last week, Khan refused to be drawn into specific outstanding issues between the two neighbours on two accounts. One, for every concern India has, his country also has a (virtually reciprocal) list of concerns and the way to move forward is not to keep getting entangled in the details but to rise above it and act with an eye on the dividends of peace for the whole region. And second, he inherited many of the intractable issues, and therefore should not be held responsible for them.Khan might have inherited issues like Hafiz Saeed and the abysmal progress in the 26/11 trial in Pakistan courts. He’s right when he says he can’t be held responsible for the past to the extent that he doesn’t have the moral taint of collusion in those acts of terrorism against India. But that doesn’t absolve him of the responsibility to act. While governments change, the state is a continuum. Besides, the true occupant of the commanding heights of Pakistan’s polity, the army, is a constant, and involved. All governments inherit advantages and problems, and India or any other stakeholder can hardly be expected to erase the slate and start afresh with every new civilian government in Pakistan.More importantly, the refusal to engage in the details or announce changes in Pakistan’s position on any substantive issue showed that Khan hasn’t even begun to treat the deadly disease of denial that plagues Pakistan’s policy towards terrorism that originates in its soil.Pakistan’s senior officials and the PM are basically saying let’s talk. But it’s not as if Pakistan doesn’t know what India wants to talk about, or vice versa. Both sides know each other’s list of concerns and the exact order of their priority.A serious approach to ending the stalemate and resuming talks would be to declare a change in some of the substantive outstanding matters between the two countries.There is no evidence that Khan has put in the hard work to change Pakistan state policy or positions towards India proportionate to the ambition of the peace appeal he has made. He has said repeatedly that if India takes one step towards peace, he is willing to take two. Perhaps he should go first, and take two steps. Kartarpur is a good gentle first step. The second step should be to show that those who used his country’s soil to attack India 10 years ago, on 26/11, are acted against.