READ ALSO:

READ ALSO:

READ ALSO:

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: The growing silence over the foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan is directly related to lack of visible action by Pakistan against the Jaish-e-Muhammed terror group , which was responsible for the attack on the Pathankot airbase on January 2.On Saturday, Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif said talks with India were going in the “right direction” but had been adversely affected by the attack. Pakistan will not allow terrorists to use its soil against any other country, he told reporters in Islamabad.Sharif promised that Pakistan would soon complete the investigations “to uncover if our soil was used in the attack”. He has formed a committee comprising top intelligence, military and government officers to probe Indian allegations but its findings have so far not been shared with the media.Sharif added that terrorists now carried out isolated acts to make their presence felt but “these will also be eliminated under an effective strategy”.Despite the promises, the suspense over the fate of the talks is growing. The ministry of external affairs last week, when questioned, said there were no “mutually convenient” dates.This is very different from two weeks ago when the ministry of extrenal affairs spokesperson stressed that the foreign secretary talks would happen in the “very near” future. Foreign secretary, S Jaishankar will be travelling to Sri Lanka next week, and is hosting his Bangladesh counterpart early in the week, which might mean a further delay.Aglaring inconsistency is whether the two dialogues — between the NSAs (on terrorism) and the foreign secretaries’ — are linked, and how deeply. Earlier, any attempt to delink talks and terror, as with the Sharm-elSheikh statement, were shot down on popular demand. This time, Ajit Doval and his counterpart have continued their conversation, with India providing intelligence and leads on the Pathankot attack to Pakistan.This was acknowledged by Sharif last week, admitting that Pakistan was verifying the stuff India had handed over. “I have received fresh leads from India on the Pathankot attack and we will look and examine those evidences given by India. We could have hidden it or forgotten about it but we asserted that we have received the evidences,” the Pakistani PM said. This was around the time US President Barack Obama stressed that “Pakistan has an opportunity to show that it is serious about delegitimising, disrupting and dismantling terror networks.”Both India and Pakistan believe the two tracks are independent and can run simultaneously. However, that means different things to both countries. Pakistan believes that the official dialogue should continue even after a terror attack, because the NSAs are talking.For India, it is a more difficult call. While the NSAs are indeed talking, and there appear to be reports that Pakistan might be taking some quiet steps, the fact that there is little visible action opens the government to domestic criticism if official talks continue without any demonstrable progress either on Pathankot or Mumbai. So the two tracks are not completely independent of each other. And that could affect the future of any normalisation.Government sources said they were keen not to repeat the “mistakes” made by both countries after the Mumbai attacks in 2008. At least, so far, both countries haven’t taken to the airwaves to trash each other. But patience appears to be wearing thin.