Why Indo-Pak talks collapsed?

Could the India-Pakistan NSA-level dialogue have been saved by facilitating simultaneously a short and separate meeting between the foreign secretaries?

While both sides publicly sparred over Hurriyat and accused each other of tampering with the Ufa agenda, it turns out that it was the failure to ensure a meeting between Pakistan's foreign secretary Aizaz Chaudhry and his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar which finally put paid to any hope of holding the NSA dialogue.

On August 21, 3 days before the scheduled meeting between NSA Ajit Doval and his counterpart Sartaj Aziz, India officially conveyed to Pakistan that a meeting between the foreign secretaries was not going to be possible.

Pakistan had proposed the meeting to discuss modalities for further discussions on what it describes as the core issue of Kashmir. This was important for Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif himself as he was keen to convey at home that the issue remained as significant as ever for Pakistan, after he allowed India to not mention J&K in the Ufa statement.

According to Indian officials, a meeting between the foreign secretaries wasn't possible because that was not a part of the understanding the two sides arrived at in the Ufa meeting between Sharif and Narendra Modi on July 10.

In her press briefing on August 22, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj declared that NSA talks could only take place if Pakistan agreed to a terror-only agenda and Aziz refrained from meeting the Kashmir separatists, both described as preconditions by Islamabad.

While India has sought to qualify its position by not blaming Pakistan's civilian government for the spurt in ceasefire violations, or even the collapse of talks, Pakistan describes it as a self-serving contention. "Coming after the Ufa concession by Sharif, agreeing to Sushma Swaraj's preconditions would have been suicidal for the Pakistan government, pressure or no pressure from authorities which India is talking about," said a Pakistan source.