This week marks the third anniversary of Pakistan's nuclear tests. Those blasts followed India's own tests by a few days. Although both governments denied that the explosions posed a threat to regional peace and stability, the tit-for-tat exchanges marked a dangerous escalation in the situation in South Asia. To their credit, both governments have restrained the impulse to make nuclear threats despite powerful temptations to do so. But there has been little movement toward dialogue during the same period. That changed last weekend with the Indian government's invitation to Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to come to Delhi for talks.
The timing of the invitation was ironic on two counts. Not only did it come on the anniversary of the nuclear tests, but it also followed the termination of India's six-month-old unilateral ceasefire against Kashmir rebels who demand separation from India. Only hours after the ceasefire ended, six guerrillas were killed by Indian security forces.
The end of the ceasefire is regrettable; violence has only inflamed the situation in Kashmir. But talks with the separatists, which the ceasefire was supposed to facilitate, have gone nowhere. That is because Pakistan, which supports those groups -- a charge it denies -- did not want India to be able to avoid dealing with Islamabad.