About 24 hours after military chiefs from India and Pakistan surprised the world last month with a rare joint commitment to respect a 2003 ceasefire agreement, the top diplomat of the United Arab Emirates popped over to New Delhi for a quick one-day visit.
The official UAE readout of the Feb. 26 meeting gave few clues of what Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed spoke about with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, noting they "discussed all regional and international issues of common interest and exchanged views on them.”
Yet behind closed doors, the India-Pakistan ceasefire marked a milestone in secret talks brokered by the UAE that began months earlier, according to officials aware of the situation who asked not to be identified. The ceasefire, one said, is only the beginning of a larger roadmap to forge a lasting peace between the neighbors, both of which have nuclear weapons and spar regularly over a decadesold territory dispute.