India-Pakistan relations and the upcoming Ankara conference on Afghanistan

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Abstract

India-Pakistan relations recently experienced a new low – expressed in a sharpened public rhetoric, the frequent occurrence of cease-fire violations at the ‘Line of Control’ (LoC), contestation over influence in Afghanistan, and other dynamics. The decades-old bilateral tensions gathered particular steam in August 2019 as New Delhi abrogated Article 370, which granted the Indian-administered State of Jammu and Kashmir a special, autonomous constitutional status. Since then, New Delhi has conducted a series of measures to operationalize the administrative aspects of the territory’s reconstitution, for example the ‘Kashmir domicile law’. In response, Pakistan launched a major public diplomacy campaign, apparently including elements of disinformation, so as to internationalize the Kashmir conflict. In November 2020, Pakistan presented a dossier allegedly revealing ‘irrefutable evidence’ of India’s involvement in sponsoring terrorism and attempts to destabilize Pakistan. More concretely, Pakistan accused India of supporting ‘various tactical terrorist campaigns aimed at reviving the greatly diminished insurgencies in the restive Balochistan province and the tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’, among several other issues. These accusations also have implications for Afghanistan-Pakistan ties, since the dossier claims that India is ‘running dozens of training camps in Afghanistan for multiple, globally outlawed militant groups to plot terrorism on Pakistani soil’. The Indian embassy and consulates in Afghanistan are allegedly responsible for conducting such activities. The report claims that Indian intelligence officers operate ‘under the diplomatic cover from consulates in Afghanistan’. […]