With representatives from India and Pakistan scheduled sit down to finalise a deal on the Kartapur Corridor to allow Indian Sikh pilgrims to travel to Pakistan, former Indian ambassador to U.S. and desk in charge of Pakistan in the Ministry of External Affairs Arun Singh says the corridor could be provide an opening for possible engagement between the two countries.

Edited excerpts from an interview.

By revoking article 370 India, India has changed the entire narrative on Kashmir. What happens now in terms the global discourse on Kashmir? How do you see this playing out in the long term?

On 22 February, 1994, the Indian Parliament adopted a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir which asserted that “the State of Jammu and Kashmir has been, is and shall be an integral part of India". This has been India’s consistent position since then. India’s August 5 action on Article 370 was within its sovereign prerogative. There is widespread international recognition that India will not accept any third part role or mediation on India– Pakistan issues. India’s experience in the two decades of international mediation efforts after the conflict in 1947 was that third parties were not guided by principles, facts and realities, but their own interests. But other countries do get active when there is a sense of crisis, potential or actual conflict. Pakistan is now trying again to internationalize the issue, create a sense of crisis and impending conflict to get the UN or major international countries involved. They need this also for their own domestic politics, since Prime minister Imran Khan and Army Chief Qamar Bajwa (who was just given a three extension in tenure) would otherwise be criticized for having generated no opposition to India removing the fig leaf from Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir.